Qass_XLKAi£ 
Book — ^5 . 




Frontispiece. 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



AN EPISODE IN RUSSIAN HISTORY. 



PROSPER MERIMEE, 

OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 



TRANSLATED BY ANDREW R. SCOBLE. 




LONDON : 

RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, 
^ubltsijer in ^rtmtarjj ta |©er ifflajcstg* 

1853. 



LOXDOX : 

.VDBURY AND EVAXS, PRINTERS, WHITEFKI ABS 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The portraits of the first false Demetrius and his wife 
Marina, with which this Volume is illustrated, are taken from 
two very rare wood-engravings, published in Poland in the 
year 1606, and copies of which are contained in the Polish 
Library at Paris. Each of the original engravings is accom- 
panied by a long inscription in Latin elegiacs, laudatory of 
the persons represented, but of no historical interest or 
literary merit whatever. I have, therefore, thought it unne- 
cessary to reproduce them here. The portraits are, however, 
interesting, not only on account of their historical associa- 
tions, but as illustrative of the costumes of that period, and 
of the state of the fine arts in eastern Europe nearly two 
centuries and a half ago. They have been carefully copied 
from tracings of the original engravings kindly furnished 
me by M. Merimee, 

A. B. SCOBLE. 

London, December, 1852. 



* CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Ivan the Terrible ; his death and character. — Accession of Feodor. — 
Regency of Boris. — His policy. — Death of the Tsarevitch Deme- 
trius. — Its consequences. — Popular hatred of Boris. — He becomes 
Tsar . 1 



CHAPTER II. 

Relations of Russia with neighbouring countries. — Wars with Poland. 
— Comparison of the two nations. — Stephen Battory. — Sigismund 
III. and his Swedish subjects. — Story of Gustavus Ericsen . .21 



CHAPTER III. 

Government of Boris. — His encouragement of Foreigners. — Laws 
against drunkenness. — Laws regarding serfs. — His conduct 
towards the nobility. — His great unpopularity. — Famine and 
pestilence of 1601-1603 32 



CHAPTER IV. 

Appearance of the first Demetrian Pretender. — His credentials. — 
His reception by the Polish nobles. — The Cossacks. — Alarm of 
Boris. — Introduction of Demetrius to the Palatine of Sendomir. 
— His relations with the Jesuits and the Papal Nuncio. — His 
reception by the King of Poland. — Gregory Otrepief. — Demetrius 
marches into Russia 41 



vi 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER V. 

PAGE 

Triumphant progress of Demetrius through Severia. — Siege of Nov- 
gorod. — Battle of Novgorod and victory of Demetrius. — Recall 
of the Poles. — Battle of Dobrynitchi and defeat of Demetrius. — 
Retreat to Poutivle. — Plots and counterplots. — Death of Boris . 72 



CHAPTER VI. 

Proclamation of Feodor Borissovitch. — Basmanof is sent to the camp. 
— Defection of the army. — Proclamation of Demetrius as Tsar. — 
Death of Tsar Feodor and his mother. — Conduct of Demetrius 
to his enemies. — His entrance into Moscow ... .95 



CHAPTER VII. 

Demetrius recalls the exiles — and constitutes his Council. — He 
assumes the title of Csesar. — His laws regarding the condition 
of serfs. — His interview with the widow of Ivan the Terrible. — 
His activity, and attention to public business. — His religious 
failings. — His ideas of Slavonic unity. — His ecclesiastical reforms. 
— Conspiracy of Basil Schuisky. — Its discovery. — Clemency and 
generosity of Demetrius 115 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Relations of Demetrius with Poland. — His correspondence with the 
Pope. — His mistress Xenia. — Remonstrances of Mniszek. — Deme- 
trius sends an embassy to Cracow to demand the hand of Marina. 
— Treatment of his ambassadors. — His marriage by proxy. — 
Journey of Marina to Russia . . . . . . .138 



CHAPTER IX. 

Rashness of Demetrius ; his contempt for Russian usages. — The pre- 
tender Tsarevitch Peter.— Journey of Mniszek.— His reception 
by the Tsar. — Entrance of Marina into Moscow.— Popular dis- 



CONTENTS. 



vii 



satisfaction. — Reception of the Polish ambassadors. — Marriage 
and coronation of Marina. — Conspiracy of Schuisky. — Reckless- 
ness of Demetrius. — Revolt in Moscow. — Murder of Demetrius. — 
His character, and probable origin . . . . . .154 



CHAPTER X. 

Treatment and conduct of Mniszek and the Poles. — Schuisky is 
appointed Tsar. — Dissatisfaction of the southern provinces. — 
Rumours and rebellions. — Policy of Schuisky. — Canonisation of 
the true Demetrius. — Revolt of the Cossacks. — Ivan Bolotnikof. — 
The Tsarevitch Peter. — Siege of Toula. — Punishment of the 
rebels . 209 



CHAPTER XL 

Appearance of the Second Demetrius. — His progress. — His character. 
— He is joined by a large number of Poles. — Battle at Volkhof. — 
The Impostor encamps at Touchino. — Alarm of Tsar Basil. — He 
liberates his Polish prisoners. — Marina joins the Impostor. — Siege 
of Troitsa. — Defeat of the rebels by Skopin.— Death of Skopin 
Schuisky 222 



CHAPTER XII. 

Invasion of Russia by Sigismund. — His pretensions to the throne. — 
His Hetman Zolkiewski. — Siege of Smolensko. — The Poles desert 
Demetrius. — His flight to Kalouga. — Devotedness of Marina. — 
Ferocious cruelty of Demetrius. — Russia in 1610. — The White 
Tsar. — Basil sends an army against Sigismund. — Exploits of 
Zolkiewski. — Battle of Klouchino 242 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Deposition of Basil. — The Boyards determine to choose Prince Ladis- 
laus of Poland for their Tsar. — Demetrius resolves to attack 
Moscow. — Desertion of Sapieha. — Flight of Demetrius. — His plans. 
— His assassination by the Tartars. — Fate of Marina . . .259 



viii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

PAGE 

Wise proceedings of Zolkiewski. — Vanity and ambition of Sigismund. 
— Renewal of the w ov .— Capture of Smolensko. — Siege of the 
Kremlin. — Victories of Gonciewski. — General disorder and 
despair. —Patriotism of Kozma Minin. — Conclusion . . 270 

APPENDIX 279 

List of Works Consulted or Quoted 311 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



CHAPTER I. 

IVAN THE TERRIBLE; HIS DEATH AND CHARACTER.— ACCESSION OF FEODOR. — 
REGENCY OF BORIS. — HIS POLICY. — DEATH OF THE TSAREVITCH DEMETRIUS. 
— ITS CONSEQUENCES. — POPULAR HATRED OF BORIS. — HE BECOMES TSAR. 

Ivan the Fourth, Tsar and Grand-Duke of Russia, died 
in 1584, after a long reign. His foreign contemporaries 
surnamed him the Executioner ; the Russians still call him 
Ivan the Terrible. But he was terrible to his subjects only, 
for neither the Poles nor the Tartars ever saw him on a field 
of battle. He was nothing better than a coarse and cruel 
tyrant, who delighted in shedding blood with his own hands. 
Nevertheless, a certain amount of popular respect remains 
attached to his memory : during his reign, though sullied by 
so many crimes, the Russians began to catch a glimpse of 
their high destiny, and to measure their rising strength, 
which had been concentrated and brought into organisation 
by his despotism. Nations, like individuals, never retain a 
bitter recollection of the days of trial which have developed 
their energy and matured their courage. 

Ivan left two sons, Feodor and Demetrius, the first of 
whom, at twenty-two years of age, succeeded him. The 
second, born in 1581, was sprung from a seventh marriage,* 



* Some historians, regarding as null one of Ivan's marriages which, was 
not consummated, allow him only six wives. 

B 



2 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



contracted by Ivan in contempt of the canons of the Greek 
Church, which recognises no union as legitimate after the 
fourth widowhood. Notwithstanding this circumstance, the 
right of Demetrius to the title of Tsarevitch * was not dis- 
puted, and he was even regarded as the presumptive heir to 
the crown, as the feeble health of Feodor rendered it 
extremely probable that he would die without issue. 

The character of the new Tsar contrasted strangely with 
that of his father. Gentle and timid as a child, and devout 
even to superstition, Feodor spent his days in prayer, or in 
listening to, and commenting upon, pious legends. He was 
constantly to be seen in the churches, and he frequently took 
delight in ringing the bells himself, to call the faithful to 
divine service. " He is a Sacristan," said Ivan the Terrible, 
"not a Tsarevitch."f When not engaged in devotional 
exercises, Feodor used to shut himself up with his buffoons ; 
or else, from a balcony, he would watch his huntsmen 
combating with bears. To a mind so weak, the caves of 
government were insupportable ; and he therefore lost no 
time in transferring them to one of his own favourites, the 
Boyard Boris Godounof, his brother-in-law. He first bestowed 
upon him the office of Master of the Horse, and attached to 
that title many important duties and immense power. Shortly 
afterwards, by a public confession of his own incapacity, he 
appointed him Pravitel, or Regent of the Empire. No one 
could have been better adapted than Boris to become the mayor 
of the palace to this faineant king. Active, indefatigable, 
more enlightened than any of his countrymen, J experienced 
in public business, and well acquainted with human nature, 
he was allowed to possess all the qualities of a great minister. 
Although of inferior birth, for he was the descendant of a 

* Tsarevitch, son of the Tsar. 

f Petreius, Musskowitische Chronica, vol. ii. p. 256. 
+ The supposition of Zolkiewski, that he could neither read nor write, is 
contrary to all probability. Zolkiewski MSS., p. 7. 



REGENCY OF BORIS GQDOUNOE. 



3 



Tartar Mourza. * he early took his seat in the councils of 
the Empire, and gained the favour of Ivan, without, however, 
purchasing it by acts of baseness. It is said that when, in a 
moment of madness, Ivan inflicted a mortal blow on the 
Tsarevitch, his eldest son, Boris alone dared attempt to 
hold back his arm, and to save the life of the young Prince, f 
He concealed his ambition beneath an outward show of piety 
and of unbounded attachment to his country and his 
sovereign. Naturally grave and austere, of a noble 
countenance and a commanding presence, he imposed respect 
upon the Boyards, notwithstanding their jealousy of his 
authority ; and when the Tsar appeared in public, 
accompanied by his minister, all felt that it was not 
upon the throne that the master of the Empire was to be 
sought. 

The reign of Ivan had neither exhausted the patience of 
the Russians, nor shaken their fidelity. Bbris subjected them 
to a new trial. In the place of the brutal and capricious 
domination of Ivan, he substituted an intelligent but 
annoying despotism, which laid claim to regulate the 
internal economy of every family, as well as the affairs of the 
State. Still rude and uncultivated, the Muscovites could 
not appreciate the advantages of the exact system of 
police which Boris wished to establish throughout the 
Empire. In their view, disorder was, as it were, a proof of 
independence which they cherished, and of which Ivan, with 
all his tyranny, had not deprived them. Now, however, 
this inveterate license was about to be repressed with in- 
exorable rigour. True it was that the people had no longer 
to dread those attacks of sanguinary rage which had gained 
Ivan the surname of Terrible, but a suspicious and untiring- 
surveillance now weighed heavily on every family. The last 
Tsar was a ferocious brute, whom it was dangerous to meet, 



Prince or nobleman. 



f Karamzin, vol. ix. p. 447. 

b 2 



4 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



but whose approach might be avoided, and whose anger it 
might perhaps be possible to disarm : whereas no act or 
thought of disobedience escaped the notice of the Regent, who 
was served by innumerable spies. Great and small felt equally 
the pressure of his iron hand : with impassible severity, 
he punished ignorance as a crime, and, in order to reform an 
ancient abuse, he invented a hundred new means of con- 
straint. Full of confidence in the superiority of his own 
judgment, and, perhaps, honestly confounding the aggran- 
disement of his family with that of his country, Boris made 
all bend beneath his will, and would listen neither to advice 
nor remonstrance. The Russians felt themselves more en- 
slaved than ever under this new form of despotism, so 
regular and minute ; and sometimes even they almost 
regretted the intermittent fury of Ivan the Terrible. 

The efforts put forth by the enemies of Boris to destroy 
his ascendancy, served only to confirm it. An attempt was 
made to oblige Feodor to repudiate his wife Irene, the sister 
of the Regent, on account of her barrenness; and her suc- 
cessor was even suggested in the person of the sister of Prince 
Mstislavski, the chief Boyard in the council. Boris parried 
the blow : he caused ecclesiastical authority to exert its all- 
powerful influence over Feodor's mind, and persuaded him 
that it would be dangerous to Russia to deprive Demetrius 
of a crown which he seemed predestined to wear. He 
showed how, at a future period, civil w^ar might be kindled 
between that prince and his nephews, and how the 
barbarians w r ould take advantage of such anarchy to 
devastate the Empire. It would seem that, at this epoch, the 
right of succession to the throne was not yet very accurately 
determined in Russia; and we may suppose that the Mus- 
sulman custom, which awards the crown to the nearest 
descendant of the founder of the dynasty, still retained 
numerous partisans in a country in which the Tartars had 
implanted so many oriental traditions. However this may 



THE TSAREVITCH DEMETRIUS. 



5 



be., Feodor did not repudiate bis wife; and tbe sister of 
Prince Mstislavski was obliged to take the veil. 

Boris desired above all things to be feared, but he did 
not disdain a certain amount of popularity for his family ; 
and he left no means untried to render his sister Irene dear 
to the Russian people. All rigorous measures were executed 
in the name of the Tsar, and by order of the Regent ; but 
acts of clemency, and favours of every kind, were ascribed 
to the intercession of the Tsarina Irene, who, indeed, was 
always a docile instrument in the hands of her brother. She 
acted and thought only in obedience to his inspirations, blend- 
ing with great simplicity of heart her respect and admiration 
of Boris with the passionate love which she felt for Feodor. 

The intimidated Boyards were reduced to silence. Deme- 
trius, still a child, could cause no apprehension ; but his 
mother, the Tsarina-dowager, Maria Fedorovna, and his 
three uncles, Michael, Gregory, and Andrew Nago'f, might 
perhaps attempt to avail themselves of their alliance with 
the reigning family. Boris therefore banished them to the 
town of Ooglitch, which had been assigned as an appanage 
to young Demetrius by the will of Ivan ; and, under the 
pretext of entrusting them with the education of the Tsar- 
evitch, he kept them there in a kind of exile. 

At Ooglitch, in 1591, Demetrius, at ten years of age, 
had his little court, his jiltsy,* and his great officers, among 
whom the Regent had doubtless introduced many a spy. 
The pensions of the young prince and his family were paid 
and controlled by a Deak, or Secretary of Chancery, named 
Michael Bitiagofski, a creature of Boris ; and between this 
functionary and the Nagoi there naturally arose frequent 
discussions, which increased in bitterness from day to day. 
Strong in the authority with which the Regent had invested 
him, the secretary delighted to cavil at all the pretensions 

* The jiltsy were children brought up with the young princes of the 
blood royal, like the Menins of the French Dauphin. 



6 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



of the family of the Tsarevitch. It seemed his constant 
aim, by the incessant renewal of petty vexations, to make 
them feel that their fortune had greatly declined since the 
death of Ivan the Terrible. To the complaints which they 
laid before the Tsar, Bitiagofski replied by denouncing any 
imprudent expressions that might have escaped from the 
Nago'i during their exile. If we may believe the report of 
the Secretary of Chancery, the Tsarevitch already ex- 
hibited the ferocious instincts and cruel tastes of his father. 
He took pleasure in nothing, it was said, but in seeing ani- 
mals beaten, or else in mutilating them with a refinement of 
barbarity. It is related that, one winter's day, when play- 
ing with some children of his own age, he constructed seve- 
ral figures of men out of the snow in the court-yard of his 
palace. To each of these he gave the name of one of the 
great functionaries of the Empire; and the largest of all 
he called Boris. Then seizing a wooden sabre, he knocked 
off either their arms or their heads. " When I am a man," 
said the child, "that is how I will treat tbem. v * These 
and similar anecdotes were carefully collected and com- 
mented upon at Moscow. Perhaps they may have been 
invented by the agents of Boris, in order to render the 
Nago'i odious to the Russian nobility ; or, perhaps, edu- 
cated as he was by servants and courtiers in disgrace, the 
young prince only repeated too faithfully the lessons which 
he was taught. 

The hopes and fears occasioned by his education were, 
however, speedily dissipated by the sudden death of Deme- 
trius. His end was strange, and it is difficult to say whether 
it was the result of an accident or of a crime. On the loth of 
May, 1591 (O.S.), the Tsarevitch, whom his mother had just 
left for a moment, was amusing himself with four children, 
his pages orjiltsy, in the courtyard of his palace, — a spacious 
enclosure which contained several separate dwelling-houses, 

* Palitsyne. Skazanie o osade Troitskago Monastyra, p. 2 ; Baer, p. 3. 



DEATH OF THE TSAREVITCH. 



7 



built irregularly in various parts.* He was still attended 
by Vassilissa Volokhof, bis governess, his nurse, and a 
chambermaid. It is probable that they may have lost sight of 
him for a moment. According to the unanimous testimony of 
the three women and of the pages, he was holding a knife, 
which he was amusing himself by sticking into the ground, 
or with which he was cutting a piece of wood. On a sud- 
den, the nurse looked round, and saw him weltering in his 
blood. He had a large wound in his throat, and he expired 
without uttering a word. On hearing the cries of the nurse, 
the Tsarina ran up, and, in the first transports of her despair, 
exclaimed that her son .had been assassinated. She flew 
upon the governess, whose duty it was to take care of him, 
and beat her furiously with a heavy stick, accusing her of 
having admitted the murderers who had just slain her son. 
At the same time, as her thoughts doubtless turned to her 
recent quarrels with Bitiagofski, she invoked upon that man 
the vengeance of her brothers and of the servants of her 
household. Michael Nago'i now came up, having just left 
the dinner-table, in a state of intoxication, according to the 
testimony of several witnesses ; in his turn he began to 
beat the poor governess, and ordered that the alarm-bell 
should be rung at the Church of the Saviour, which stood 
near the palace. In an instant the courtyard was filled 
with inhabitants of Ooglitch and domestics, who ran up 
with pitchforks and hatchets, believing that the palace of 
the Tsarevitch was on fire. With them arrived Bitiagofski, 
accompanied by his son, and by the gentlemen employed in 
his Chancery. He endeavoured to speak, to appease the 
tumult, and cried out at once, that the child had killed 
himself by falling on his knife in an epileptic fit, from which it 
was well known that he frequently suffered. u Behold the 

* For all the following details, see the record of the inquest held at 
Ooglitch, in the Sobranie Gosoudarstvennik G-ramot, vol. ii. p. 103, et seq. ; 
and Appendix A. at the end of this volume. 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



murderer ! " exclaimed the Tsarina. A hundred arms were 
immediately raised to strike him. He fled into one of the 
houses in the enclosure, and barricaded the door; but it was 
soon burst open, and he was cut to pieces. His son was slain 
at the same time. Whoever raised his voice in his defence, 
whoever was known to be connected with him, was immedi- 
ately struck down and put to death. The governess Yassi- 
Hssa, covered with blood, and half-killed by the blows she 
had received, lay on the ground near the Tsarina, bare- 
headed, and with dishevelled hair ; for the servants of the 
Nagoi had taken off her cap — which was considered by the 
Russians, at this period, a more infamous outrage even than 
blows. One of her serfs, compassionating her disgrace, 
picked up her cap, and replaced it on her head : he was in- 
stantly massacred.* The furious crowd, still pursuing and 
murdering those who were pointed out to its vengeance, 
carried the bleeding body of the Tsarevitch into the Church, 
Thither they dragged Daniel Volokhof, the son of the go- 
verness, who was known to be intimate with Bitiagofski. 
This was enough to procure his condemnation as an accom- 
plice in the crime; and he was immediately put to death 
before the eyes of his mother, in front of the body of the 
young prince.-f It was with great difficulty that the priests 
of the Church of the Saviour rescued Vassilissa and the 
daughters of Bitiagofski from the hands of the multitude. 
All these women, however, were shut up in one of the 
buildings adjoining the cathedral ; and guards were placed 
at all the approaches. 

Nearly a dozen clerks in the Chancery of the Tsar, and a 
few inhabitants of Ooglitch, suspected of connivance with 
the assassins, thus perished in this sudden riot, in which the 
murderers slew, at hap-hazard, all who came in their way. 
" They hunted them down like hares," says one of the 

* Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 106; deposition of Vassilissa Volokhof. 
f Ibid. 



RIOT AT OOGLITCH. 



9 



witnesses in her deposition.* Two days after, the Tsarina, 
who had just denounced the supposed assassins, changed 
her opinion, and took it into her head that a female dwarf, 
who used sometimes to amuse her by her buffooneries, had 
bewitched the Tsarevitch. She ordered this unfortunate 
wretch to be shot ; and her body was thrown into the water 
without further judicial ceremony.-)- 

The Nagoi, in the meanwhile, had slept themselves sober, 
and reflected, not without alarm, on the consequences of 
this terrible butchery. The massacre of the secretaries and 
officers of the Tsar was not an action likely to remain 
unpunished by a minister so jealous of his authority as 
Boris. The bodies of the victims of the affray had been 
left to lie unburied in various directions. Michael and 
Gregory Nagoi, in the absence of proofs to authenticate the 
murder of the Tsarevitch, resolved to invent them. They 
produced knives, sabres, and other weapons, steeped in the 
blood of a fowl, which they asserted had been found in the 
hands of the officers killed by the populace of Ooglitch ; 
and these weapons, they said, had been used to murder 
young Demetrius. It was proved that one of the Nagoi 
had given to the bailiff of Ooglitch a Tartar dagger^ to be 
placed on the corpse of Bitiagofski or one of his compan- 
ions ; and it was established in evidence that this dagger 
really belonged to Gregory Nagoi. § All these facts were 

* Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 106; deposition of Vassilissa Volokhof. 

f Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. pp. 106, 107, deposition of Vassilissa; and 
p. 121, deposition of Rousin Rakof, bailiff of Ooglitch. The body was 
probably thrown into the water that it might be seen whether, according 
to the prejudice of the time, it would sink or swam. It is well known 
that, throughout all Europe, it was believed at this period that a witch 
would float on the water. But- at Ooglitch they began the experiment by 
killing the supposed sorceress. 

J "Naga'iskii noj." Depositions of Rakof and of Michael Nagoi', Ibid. 

§ Gos. Gramoty. This circumstance gives rise to a conjecture which 
does not appear to have been entertained at the time when the event 
occurred. It results from the inquiry made a few days after the death of 

b 3 



10 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



proved in an inquiry which was ordered by Boris in the 
name of the Tsar, immediately after the occurrence of the 
event. He had appointed three commissioners, the chief of 
whom was Prince Basil Schuisky, a nobleman whose rank, 

the Tsarevitcb, that he had a wound in his throat, but the commissioners 
sent from Moscow did not take the trouble to examine whether it was 
caused by the child's knife, or by some other weapon. This point was 
nevertheless capital, and an examination of the wound would have sufficed 
to decide whether the death of the young prince was to be attributed to 
an accident or to a crime. In this respect, however, the inquiry furnishes 
no precise information. But in order for the Nagoi to place a Tartar 
dagger in the hands of one of the assassins, and to produce sabres among 
the weapons which they accused them of having used to murder the 
Tsarevitcb, it was indispensable that his wound should resemble those 
which would be produced by such weapons. A Tartar dagger, naga'isl'ii 
noj, is a long cutlass with a broad, two-edged blade. Now, the witnesses 
of the affair, the nurse, the governess, and the pages, all depose that the 
Tsarevitcb was playing with a small knife, nojik ; and, in fact, it is not at 
all probable that a great cutlass would be placed in the hands of a child 
who was subject to fits of madness. The Nago'i, who had carried the body 
into the church, must have lost their senses to give sabres and cutlasses to 
those whom they wished to pass off as the assassins, if the wound of the 
Tsarevitcb was caused only by a small knife. — Let us remark, on the other 
hand, that, although the three women and the four pages depose that 
Demetrius pierced himself with his knife before their eyes, their evidence is 
very suspicious, because these seven witnesses, (whose duty it was to watch 
the prince, which duty they had undoubtedly discharged very imperfectly,) 
would be naturally disposed to lie for their own justification. Moreover, 
the terms of their deposition, which are almost identical, look very much 
like a lesson learned by rote. We must add that the testimony of the 
witnesses who accused Michael and Gregory Nagoi of having placed arms 
on the bodies of the pretended assassins, was only very feebly contradicted 
by Gregory, and that it was confirmed by the confession of Michael, 
especially as regards the Tartar .dagger. Might it not be inferred from 
this that the mortal blow had been given to the young prince by a man, 
and with the formidable arm of an assassin 1 ? It appears moreover 
unquestionable that no one saw, or would see, the tragedy, and that the 
intimidated witnesses hastened to confirm the suggestion of Bitiagofski, 
that the Tsarevitch had cut his own throat in a fit of epilepsy. — That he 
was subject to this disease, is a fact established by irrefutable testimony, 
and particularly by the evidence of Andrew Nagoi, who deposed that the 
child, in one of his attacks, had once wounded his mother with a knife, 
and on another occasion, bitten the arm of one of his cousins. (Deposition 
of Andrew Nago'i, Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 100.) — The inquiry which took 



INQUIRY INTO THE PRINCESS DEATH. 



11 



birth, and fortune, taken in connection with his independent 
and even somewhat factious character, rendered it certain, 
if not that the examination would be impartial, at least that 
the accused persons would have full opportunity to defend 
themselves."* Finally, it must be added that Basil Schuisky 

place at Ooglitch, and the report of which still exists, in its original form, 
among the Imperial Archives at Moscow, has been taxed with falsity by 
most Eussian historians, and even by the illustrious Karamzin. According 
to the last-named writer, all the testimonies were either falsified or extorted 
by intimidation. Judges and witnesses alike yielded to the fear with which 
they were inspired by Boris. It is true that this report must be received 
with a certain amount of distrust, but I do not think that we should on 
that account make up our minds to reject the only circumstantial and 
authentic information which exists regarding this mysterious event. We 
must not expect to find in a document dated in the year 1591, all those 
ingenious and prudent forms which long experience has now introduced 
into the procedure of all civilised nations ; and I think it would be 
exceedingly unjust to discover prevarication where perhaps ignorance only 
exists. We must not, therefore, be surprised that we do not find in the 
enquiry any report from a surgeon, or autopsy of the body, or comparison 
of the wound with the weapon which had caused it. Who will say that, 
in other countries of Europe, similar researches would then have been 
undertaken 1 And the enquiry took place in a country, and at a time, 
when a woman could be shot upon suspicion ! It appears to me equally 
impossible to admit that all the witnesses yielded to intimidation, and 
that they lied either to please Boris, or from a mere apprehension of 
finding him guilty. Many of them, and especially the ecclesiastics who 
had nobly rescued several unfortunates from the rage of the populace, 
were sheltered from the vengeance of the Regent both by their position, 
and by their conduct in this catastrophe. Yet all unanimously accused 
the Nagol. 

If Demetrius was assassinated, as may be suspected from the indications 
which I have given as to the nature of the wound which he had received 
in his throat, it is probable that a single murderer, who perhaps escaped, 
dealt him the fatal blow. The unfortunates who were cut to pieces by 
the inhabitants of Ooglitch had committed no crime but that of thwarting 
the Nagoi in their pretensions, and perhaps of controlling their expenditure 
too severely. " The massacre of Ooglitch was a just, but illegal, vengeance," 
says Karamzin, vol. x. p. 103. This is a remark which he should have 
left to Danton and his fellows, and which I am surprised to meet with in 
an historian so enlightened and ordinarily so impartial. 

* Basil Schuisky had been brought up, it is said, in the house of the 
Nagoi. Zolkiewski MSS, p. 12. 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



belonged to a family noted for its hostility to the policy of 
Boris, and that either before, or soon after, the institution 
of the inquiry, far from being able to obtain the slightest 
favour, he had been incessantly exposed, as well as the other 
members of his family, to the suspicions and even to the 
persecutions of the Regent. He was sent into exile several 
times, and invariably refused permission to marry.* 

The Nagoi made a very poor defence. They were men 
equally devoid of energy and intelligence. Neither of them 
had seen the Tsarevitch murdered. Gregory endeavoured 
feebly to deny his attempt to corrupt the bailiff of Ooglitch ; 
but Michael admitted it, and neither of the two brothers 
could produce any material evidence as to the supposed 
crime of Bitiagofski. By exasperating the populace against 
him, they had seized an opportunity of revenging them- 
selves upon a man with whom they had been incessantly at 
variance about matters of personal interest. It is true that 
the Tsarina had first denounced Bitiagofski as the assassin, 
but he was not then near the palace, and it was not sur- 
prising that a mother, in the extravagance of her grief, 
should have casually uttered his name. In fact, soon after- 
wards, forgetting her suspicions of the unfortunate secretary 
of Chancery, she had turned her rage against another 
victim. Two days later, she had even ceased to believe 
that her child had been assassinated, for she had accused a 
miserable dwarf of having bewitched him. The Tsarina 
was not interrogated by the commissioners, doubtless out of 
respect for the memory of Ivan the Terrible, but she 
spontaneously confessed her repentance. Having sent for 
the metropolitan, Gelasus, she confessed that the murder of 
Bitiagofski was " a crime and a sin," and intreated the 

* Margeret, p. 128. Karamzin, vol. xii., p. 326. According to Zol- 
kiewski, he and his brother Ivan had both been imprisoned ; and his third 
brother, Alexander, as we are informed by the same author, was put to 
death. Zolkiewski MSS. p. 10. 



PUNISHMENT OF OOGLITCH. 



13 



prelate to intercede with the Tsar to obtain her pardon and 
that of "the miserable earthworm," her brother Michael.* 

To these conclusive avowals were added other depositions 
which would be thought ridiculous at the present day, but 
which at that period must have produced a profound 
impression at the court of Moscow. Michael Nago'i was 
accused of having employed sorcerers to cast spells upon 
the Tsar. The whole of Europe still adhered to a belief 
in the occult sciences, and a few years previously, the 
Ligueurs of Paris had prepared the way for the assassina- 
tion of Henri III. by magical conjurations. In fact, an 
astrologer resided in the house of Michael, and whatever- 
may have been the use which he made of the knowledge of 
his guest, this was enough to draw down upon him the 
indignation of Feodor and of his all-powerful minister.t 

Judgment was not long delayed ; it was pronounced, as 
it would appear, with considerable solemnity, and ratified 
by the approval of a numerous assembly of ecclesiastical 
dignitaries. The Tsarina-dowager was obliged to take the 
veil under the name of Marfa, and was banished to the 
monastery of St. Nicholas, near Tcherepovets ; and her 
two brothers, Michael and Gregory, were exiled to a 
distance from the capital. At the same time, Bitiagofski 
and his companions were buried with a magnificent funeral, 
and a solemn service was celebrated in their honour. The 
inhabitants of Ooglitch were proclaimed rebels, and 
punished with a rigour bordering upon ferocity. More 
than two hundred perished in their tortures; others had 
their tongues cut out, or were cast into loathsome dungeons, 

* Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 121 ; deposition of Gelasus. — Bednyi tcherv, 
poor earthworm, was an expression commonly used in bygone times by 
petitioners in speaking of themselves. 

f Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 123. At this period, there was scarcely any 
prince or nobleman who had not an astrologer or magician attached to his 
household. In Russia, Finlanders were generally employed in operations 
of witchcraft. 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



Terror had already dispersed the greater part of the 
population, and a once flourishing city had become a 
wilderness.-' The remainder of the wretched inhabitants 
were sent to Siberia, a province which had been conquered, 
and, as it were, discovered during the reign of Ivan, but which 
was still almost uninhabited. They there founded the town 
of Pelim, one of the first Russian settlements in that 
desert land. The wrath of the Regent vented itself even 
upon inanimate objects, the material memorials of this 
mysterious crime. The palace of the Tsarevitch was razed 
to the ground, and the bell of the church of Ooglitch, 
which had roused its inhabitants to revolt, was banished 
with them. According to Karamzin, it was still shown, at 
the end of last century, in the capital of Siberia, f 

* It is said that Ooglitch formerly contained 30,000 inhabitants. 
*r Karamzin, vol. x. note 137. — I have related as accurately as possible 
all the circumstances of the catastrophe of Ooglitch, selecting from the 
report of the commissioners such facts as appeared to me to be esta- 
blished, and, •wherever uncertainty prevails, adopting the most probable 
statements. Several Russian annalists, writing long after the death of 
Demetrius, have given very circumstantial accounts of an altogether 
different nature, but have not indicated the authorities on which they 
relied. Karamzin himself appears to have aimed to reproduce the dramatic 
colouring of their traditions, rather than to estimate their historic 
value. We need almost to believe that they were dictated by an invisible 
genius, which not only penetrated into the cabinet of Boris to learn his 
most secret intentions, but even heard the last words of the innocent 
victim when alone with his assassins. According to the popular romance, 
for I can give it no other name, the Tsarina had early divined the sinister 
intentions of the Eegent. By her sedulous watchfulness over the life of 
her son, she frustrated several attempts to poison him, and, as the annalist 
Nikon piously observes, the poison produced no effect upon the young 
martyr. (Xikon, vol. vih. p. 16.) Boris then determined to employ the 
sword, a more effectual method ; and he sought in every direction for 
assassins. It was in vain, however, that he applied to his most devoted 
creatures and even to one of his relatives. At length Kletchin, one of 
the jiltsy of the Tsar Feodor, less scrupulous than the rest, found him a 
man who was ready to do anything, if well paid for it. This assassin was 
Bitiagofsld. He promised to kill the Tsarevitch with the aid of his son, 
and of a certain Katchalof, his nephew. But three ruffians were not 
enough to dispatch a child of ten years of age; so they secured the 



POPULAR HATRED OF BORIS. 



15 



One man alone had an evident interest in the death of 
the Tsarevitch, and that man was Boris. Nevertheless, 
such was the dread which he inspired, that his name was not 
once pronounced during the whole of the enquiry. But in 
spite of bis profound dissimulation, his ambition did not long 
remain a secret to any one, and few doubted that he had 
commanded and rewarded the assassination of Demetrius. 
The unexampled severity with which he treated the inhabi- 
tants of Ooglitch sufficed to convince even the most incredu- 
lous. It was whispered that he had made away with all the 

co-operation of the son of the governess, Osip or Joseph Volokhof, of a 
gentleman named Tretiakof, and of a considerable number of subalterns : 
for it must never be supposed that popular justice can fall into error, and 
all the people massacred on the 15th of May, 1591, of course deserved 
their fate. This large band of assassins was further assisted by the 
governess Vassilissa, who undertook to get the Tsarina out of the way. 
She succeeded in this, notwithstanding the presentiments and secret 
admonitions which never fail, as everybody knows, to exert their influence 
on such occasions. Osip Volokhof came up to the child on the steps 
leading into the palace, and, placing his hand on his collar so as to lay 
bare his throat, and choose a place in which to thrust his knife, he 
inquired: " Is that a new collar which you have on, my lord?" "No, 
it's the old one ; " answered Demetrius. Volokhof then struck him, and 
wounded him slightly ; all these wretches are very inexpert. However, 
as each man struck a blow, they killed the child and threw him down the 
steps. Luckily, the bell-ringer of the cathedral had seen all (and heard all, 
too, as it would appear). He sounded the tocsin; and we know the rest. 
(Karamzin, vol. x. p. 176.) It is useless to point out all the improbabilities 
of this story. How can we suppose that the crafty Boris would have 
confided his secret to so many subalterns, unless, by a fresh effort of the 
imagination, we add that the bell-ringer of the cathedral had been posted 
by him on purpose to secure the massacre of all his other agents ? In 
fact, a not less improbable supposition had become diffused among the 
public. Baer, a tolerably enlightened chronicler for his time, had learned 
it at Moscow, only nine years after the death of Demetrius, that is, 
in 1600, the period of his arrival in Russia. " Boris," he says, "in order 
to prevent any indiscretion on the part of the murderers, had them all 
dispatched on their return to Moscow." (Baer, p. 4.) This fable proves in 
how short a time the circumstances of the Ooglitch tragedy had been 
forgotten in Russia. The good German pastor seems to have been entirely 
ignorant of the massacre of Bitiagofski and his companions, as well as of 
the terrible chastisement with which it was punished. 



16 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



witnesses whom he had been unable to suborn, and 'that 
he had destroyed an entire town in order to efface the last 
vestige of his crime. Thenceforward the Muscovites looked 
upon him as a murderer, and regarded all the actions of his 
life as a series of atrocious crimes. 

Woe to him who is pursued by the hatred of the blind 
multitude ! Whether specious or absurd, there is no accu- 
sation which will not obtain its credence. With the ingenuity 
of calumny, it ascribes a criminal object to the most innocent 
actions ; it transforms fortuitous accidents into perfidious 
schemes : and frequently even, services rendered to the 
country are considered acts of treason by the vulgar crowd. 
Boris had the misfortune to experience this. Shortly after 
the horrible tragedy of Ooglitch, a destructive fire devas- 
tated several quarters of Moscow, and reduced to misery a 
large number of its inhabitants. Boris reconstructed several 
entire streets at his own expense, distributed assistance to the 
victims of the disaster, and granted them exemption from 
the taxes. His benefactions were accepted, but he was silently 
accused of having kindled the conflagration in order to 
attribute it to the partisans of the Nagoi, and to confirm by 
a new calumny the crime which he had just imputed to 
them falsely.* 

During the same year, Kassim Gherei, Khan of the 
Crimea, suddenly invaded Russia at the head of a for- 
midable army, and appeared unexpectedly at the gates of 
Moscow. The generals of the Tsar lost all presence of mind, 
the army was utterly deficient in organisation, and the 
people gave way to unreasoning despair. With his usual 

* Palitsyne, p. 4. Baer, p. 4. Margeret, p. 19, says that he set fire to 
the shops of the merchants, " in order to cut out work for them, until the 
rumour was somewhat appeased, and the minds of the people quieted." 
Karamzin, vol. x. p. 194, seems to believe that the conflagration was 
caused by Boris. But, according to Palitsyne, the fire began "in the 
middle of the day," which is quite enough to demonstrate the improbability 
of the accusation. 



DEATH OF TSAR FEODOR. 



17 



apathy, Feodor replied to those who came to him for orders, 
that " the saints, protectors of Russia, would fight on her 
behalf." * In this critical conjuncture Boris alone acted 
with energy and wisdom. In a few days he had surrounded 
Moscow with palisades and redoubts, behind which he 
posted numerous bodies of troops, and a formidable array 
of artillery. He succeeded in restoring the courage of the 
soldiers, and by his prodigious activity supplied the lack of 
all the resources which were wanting at this decisive moment. 
Repulsed in their first attack upon this extemporary camp, 
the Tartars attempted to return home at the end of a few 
days ; but, being vigorously pursued by the Russians, their 
retreat was soon changed into a terrible rout, and hardly a 
third part of their immense army succeeded in regaining 
the Tauris. Boris had saved his country, but Feodor alone 
proved grateful to him for his service. The people accused 
the Regent of having sent for the Tartars, " in order," they 
said, "that the danger of the country might lead them to 
forget the death of Demetrius.'' t 

During the following year (1592), the unexpected preg- 
nancy of the Tsarina Irene was announced : she gave birth 
to a daughter. Immediately the people murmured that 
Boris had substituted a child in the place of the one which 
his sister had brought into the world. This daughter died in a 
few days, and it was said that he had poisoned her. At length, 
in 1598, Feodor himself, whose strength had long been 
undermined by a lingering disease, expired in the arms of 
his wife and the Regent. The death of the Tsar had long 
been predicted by those who denounced Boris as the assassin 
of Demetrius. After having removed all the obstacles which 
stood in his way to the throne, after having exterminated 
all the scions of the imperial family, he had crowned his 
work by taking the life of the feeble prince, whose authority 



Nikon, vol. vii, p. 341. 



t Karamzin, vol. x. p. 213. 



IS 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR, 



he had long entirely usurped.* He was determined to 
reign. The Russian annalists, who were undoubtedly un- 
acquainted with the legends of Scotland, represent Boris 
as a second Macbeth, instigated to the commission of crime 
by the prophecies of his soothsayers. " Thou shalt reign ! " 
they told him ; and then they paused in terror at what they 
read in the future. On being urged to continue their pre- 
dictions, they added timidly : s< Thou shalt reign, but only 
for seven years ! " — " Were it only for seven days,'" cried 
Boris, " what matter, provided that I reign ! " Popular 
traditions in all countries have the same poetic form. 

This legend, evidently invented after the occurrence of 
the circumstances to which it refers, does not do justice to 
the character of Boris. His ambition was unbounded, but 
patient. His habit was to temporise, as is abundantly 
proved by the negotiations of Russia with Sweden, Tur- 
key and Poland, during his administration. He constantly 
advanced towards his object with steady, but slow steps, 
and was ever careful not to risk anything by a false pro- 
ceeding. His object, moreover, was probably not very 
distinct at first. Even if it be true that he ordered the 
assassination of young Demetrius, we must not infer that 
from that very moment he aspired to the throne ; but the 
presumptive heir, brought up by his enemies, under the reign 
of so weak a prince as Feodor, might one day have thwarted 
his plans and destroyed his authority. Wielding absolute 
sway over the mind of the Tsar, and sheltered behind 
this phantom sovereign, Boris had too much sense to 
hasten the moment when the last Emperor of the Varangian f 

* Chronicle of Morosof, MS. quoted by Karamzin, vol. r x. p. 162. — 
Zolkiewski, to all the other crimes imputed to Boris, adds that of having 
poisoned Ivan the Terrible, with the assistance of an English physician 
whom he had succeeded in bribing. Zolkiewski MSS. p. 4. 

+ So called from its founder Eurik, the leader of a horde of Varangians, 
a fierce and hardy race of Scandinavian pirates, who established his sway 
over Russia in the ninth century. 



BORIS BECOMES TSAR. 



19 



dynasty should descend to the tomb. Besides, that event 
had long been anticipated, and the only wonder was that 
Feodor, who had been sickly from his birth, had not died 
at an earlier age. Boris had made every preparation for 
the extinction of the dynasty. All the public functionaries 
were his creatures: the Strelitz* and the clergy were, 
so to speak, under his thumb, and had become accustomed 
to regard him as the sole head of the State ; the people, 
though they hated him, had great confidence in his ability 
and good-fortune; and it was an established opinion that 
the Empire could not dispense with a genius so fertile in 
resources. Finally, Feodor himself regarded him as his 
inevitable successor, and seemed to point him out as such 
to the nation. A few days before his death, he gave him 
a casket full of relics, and said : — 44 Place thy hands on 
these holy relics, O Regent of the orthodox people ! Govern 
them with prudence. Thou wilt succeed in obtaining thy 
desires, but thou wilt experience that on this earth all is 
vanity and deception." f 

Like Richard III., and other ambitious men, Boris made 
a pretence of refusing the crown when it could no longer 
escape from his grasp. As soon as Feodor had breathed his 
last sigh, the Regent compelled the Boyards of the council 
and the great officers of the Empire to take an oath of fidelity 
to Irene, the widowed Tsarina. But, either from distaste 
for the world, or in obedience to a secret command from 
her dying husband, or perhaps at the instigation of her 
brother, she announced her intention to retire to a convent. 
As for Boris, he loudly declared that he too desired to with- 
draw from public life, and end his days in seclusion ; feeling 
sure that he would never be allowed to do so. On more 
than one occasion the grandees of the realm, the deputies 
of the provinces, and the clergy with the patriarch at their 

* The body-guard of the Tsar, composed of 1000 men of noble birth, 
f Book of Degrees of Latoukhin ; Karamzin, vol. x. p. 291. 



20 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



head, threw themselves at his feet and besought him with 
tears to reign over Russia. All vied with one another for 
the honour of overcoming his resistance, or rather all were 
already conscious of the necessity of proving their devoted- 
ness ; and, according to a Russian annalist, t£ those who 
could not cry wetted their eyes with spittle/''* Even the 
people, who had been opportunely alarmed by the report of 
a Tartar invasion, t joined their entreaties to those of the 
nobility, in order to persuade the favourite of destiny. In 
his presence, mothers threw their sucking-children on the 
ground without listening to their cries. An innumerable 
multitude surrounded the convent to which Boris had 
retired, and received each of his refusals with a wild groan 
of despair. " For pity's sake," said Boris weeping, for he 
too had tears at his command ; " for pity's sake, do not 
make me a victim to-* the throne ! " But this feigned 
resistance soon ended. He yielded as soon as it was 
evident that he was elected by the general wish of the 
nation. Amidst the universal enthusiasm, the princes of 
the Schuisky family alone had exhibited considerable luke- 
warmness, and even a slight tendency to opposition. { 
Boris never forgot it. 

* Karamzin, vol. x. p. 314, note 218. Margeret, p. 22. 

f Margeret, p, 23, X "Letopis o miatejakh," p. 18, 



THE NEIGHBOURS OF RUSSIA. 



21 



CHAPTER II. 



RELATIONS OF RUSSIA WITH NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES. — WARS WITH POLAND, 

COMPARISON OF THE TWO NATIONS. — STEPHEN BATTORY— SIGISMUND 

III. AND HIS SWEDISH SUBJECTS. — STORY OF GUSTAYUS ERICSEN. " 

Nothing bad changed in Russia except the name of the 
Tsar. During the first years of his reign, Boris Godounof 
laboured, as be had done during the life of Feodor, to extend 
over all the provinces of his empire the vigilance of an 
administration which, though undoubtedly enlightened, was 
certainly tyrannical. I shall presently have occasion to 
examine the character of his government, but before giving 
a description of the internal condition of Russia at the end 
of the sixteenth century, it will be well, I think, to notice, 
as briefly as possible, its relations with neighbouring peoples, 
just before the occurrence of the events which form the 
principal subject of my narrative. . 

The Tartars and Turks on the South, the Poles on the 
West, and the Swedes on the North, were the nations in 
immediate connection with the Muscovites, and whom thev 
might justly call their natural enemies, for, at that period, 
war was the normal and ordinary condition of neighbour- 
hood. | Nations did not then enter into treaties of peace ; 
they merely made trucesX This distinction is sufficient to 
indicate all the difference wbich exists between those times 
and our own. 

Ever since the vigorous repression of the incursion of the 
Khan of the Crimea, in 1591, the power of the Tartars had 



22 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



continued to decline. Disastrous inroads and acts of pillage 
might still be apprehended on their part, but they were no 
longer in a condition to undertake an invasion. They 
began to be held in check by the military colonies, or, as 
they were then called, the armies of Cossacks established 
on the southern frontier. Too frequently these colonies 
indulged in reprisals upon the infidels, and it was a constant 
source of anxiety to the Tsar to restrain the impetuosity of 
these undisciplined troops, accustomed to live upon plunder, 
and to respect no authority whatever.* The Russian 
envoys to the Ottoman Porte were usually despatched with 
instructions to disavow the depredations of the Cossacks on 
the shores of the Black Sea, to arrest the bellicose tendencies 
of the Khan by either promises or threats, and, in case of 
need, to direct his irruptions against the Polish provinces. f 
Other emissaries of the Tsar carried on constant intrigues 
at the Court of Persia and with the Georgian princes, so as 
to occupy the Sultan^ attention and divert him from any 
projects of conquest which he might entertain. 

For many centuries, war, interrupted only by infrequent 
and badly observed truces, had prevailed between Poland 
and Russia. Tales of heroic combats, lamentable reverses, 
and continual inroads, were handed down from generation 
to generation. It was a conflict incessantly renewed, and 
which, for a long time to come, was to remain undecided. 
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, an inattentive 
observer might easily have miscalculated the respective 
forces of the two nations. Poland, by the extent of her 

* The King of Poland was placed in equal embarrassment by his 
Cossack subjects. "Cosacorum licentia eo usque crevit ut ex libitu suo 
bellum inferant ac prsedas agant. Varnam, proximo anno (1605), nobile 
Turcarum emporium abeis direptum esse, decern Turcicas triremes mercibus 
onustas interceptas esse, etc." Lubienski, Opera Posth., p. 111. 

f Thus, in the year 1589, Kassim Gherei* was complimented by Boris in 
the name of Feodor for the ravages which he had lately made in Lithuania. 
Karamzin, vol. x. p. 144. 



RUSSIA AND POLAND. 



23 



provinces, the relative development of her civilisation, and 
the warlike habits of her people, seemed to possess a decided 
superiority over Russia. Her invasions were irresistible 
and her victories splendid, but the instability of her 
government, and still more, it must be said, the inconstant 
character of her people, caused her to lose the fruits of her 
exploits, and restored equilibrium between the two nations 
at the very moment when it appeared to be for ever 
destroyed. On the one side was unreflecting ardour, on the 
other indomitable patience. Here was disorder instituted 
by the laws, implanted by custom, and perpetuated by war- 
like usages ; there, obedience and respect for authority had 
become a religious duty. The Poles took for their king a 
foreigner whom they adopted, as it were ; the Russians 
called their sovereign their father, and glorified themselves 
in being his submissive children. Both peoples had sprung 
from the same ancestry, but the Poles, whilst retaining 
their national independence, had preserved the unbridled 
license of the ancient Slaves, whereas the Russians, conquered 
by the Tartars, had profited by the stern lessons of adversity. 
The hordes which invaded Muscovy had bent the entire 
nation beneath a yoke of iron, but they disdained to 
exterminate its chiefs, who appeared to them convenient 
instruments by which to rule. Servitude imparted to the 
Russian princes all the instincts of the slave, pliantness, 
cunning, and untiring patience. They also learned from 
their masters the art of command. Ere long, they drove 
out the barbarians, whose entire authority then passed into 
their hands. Under the Mussulman dominion, the attach- 
ment of the Russians to their relic-ion had gained fresh 
strength ; it was the bond which had maintained their 
nationality, and which was still to defend it amid trials of a 
not less formidable character. In the Republic of Poland, 
on the other hand, there was neither unity of faith, nor 
even national unity. In some of its German provinces, the 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



Lutheran religion was beginning to prevail. Nearly the 
whole of Lithuania and the Ukraine professed the Greek 
religion, which still reckoned numerous adherents in the 
other parts of the republic. Among the Muscovites, on 
the contrary, with the exception of a few savage tribes,* 
all professed the same creed as well as spoke the same 
language. 

In a political point of view, the religion of the Russians 
still lent them considerable strength, and we may, in fact, 
discern in the Greek Church many of those temporal and 
practical advantages which Montesquieu has pointed out in 
the religious institutions of the Romans. Imported into 
Russia from Constantinople, it still retained its original 
character, and always manifested entire submission to the 
secular power. From the very introduction of Christianity, 
every Russian prince in whose domains an eparchy was 
established, possessed or had assumed the right of appoint- 
ing and deposing his bishop at his will. The metropolitan 
himself, although presented by the patriarch of Constanti- 
nople, might be refused, or even superseded, by the Grand 
Duke of Kief. Russia never witnessed that antagonism 
between the Church and the Throne which so frequently 
brought desolation upon Western Europe. Rut such was 
not the case in Catholic Poland. Her kings, in their 
disputes with Russia, were animated as much by religious 
fervour as by ambition to extend their empire. They 
frequently proclaimed their intention to extirpate the schism 
of the East, and, sacrificing their political interests to their 
zeal for conversion, they compelled all Christians who 
adopted the Greek ritual to throw themselves into the arms 
of Russia. By this means they alienated from themselves 
the Lithuanians and the warlike peoples of the Ukraine. 

Almost alone among the kings of Poland, Stephen 

* Like the Tcheremisses, and a few Finnish tribes scattered here and 
there among the Slavonic populations. 



PLANS OF STEPHEN BATTORY. 



25 



Battory does not appear to have shared in these enthusiastic 
and chivalrous ideas. His object, too, was a great one, but 
it was purely political. He was the first who conceived the 
plan of uniting all the Slavonic peoples in a common league, 
and under a single head. After gaining splendid victories 
over the Russians, after having won Livonia from Ivan IV. 
and compelled him to sue for -a disgraceful peace, he sent 
this message to the Muscovite ambassadors : <fi Let us 
abandon these vain quarrels ; we are all Slaves ; whether 
Poles or Russians, are we not all brethren ? What matter 
a few slight differences of creed ? Why should we not all 
have the same standard, the same chief? May God grant 

a long life to both sovereigns; but they are mortal 

If the King of Poland dies first, let his states be joined to 
those of the Tsar ; let Cracow be equal to Moscow, and 
Wilna to Novgorod. And, on the other hand, in case of 
the predecease of the Tsar, pledge yourselves to acknow- 
ledge Stephen as the sovereign of all Russia." * 

This singular proposition was presented to the Russian 
plenipotentiaries by a Lithuanian ambassador, a short time 
after the death of Ivan the Terrible, at a period when it 
seemed likely that Feodor might reckon on a longer life than 
Battory, who was already suffering from the disease to 
which he finally succumbed. Perhaps Battory had no 
thought for himself ; his genius was vast, and, although he 
did not belong to the Slavic race, he had foreseen its mighty 
destiny. The alliance was, however, rejected by the Russians, 
who suspected it to be a snare, or who feared that the Poles, 
on account of their superior civilisation, would predominate 
in the fusion of the two peoples. 

However, after the death of Stephen Battory, his plan 
re-appeared, and this time it was brought forward by the 
Russians. Feodor was one of the candidates for the throne 
of Poland, at the election of 1587, and according to all 

* Karamzin, vol. s. p. 54, et seq. 

C 



26 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



appearance he would have been appointed by the Diet, if 
religious prejudices had not intervened, and outweighed 
political considerations. Wounded in his cherished belief as 
well as in his national pride, Feodor abruptly broke off the 
negociations.* But, although they failed, these attempts 
proved that, in spite of their long-standing animosities, the 
two great Slavonic peoples still remembered their common 
origin. Between them there existed a rivalry rather than a 
national hatred ; but they were too near neighbours, and, if 
I may be allowed to say so, too near relations, for every 
internal revolution of one of the two peoples not to attract 
the intervention of the other. 

Boris regarded it as an important success that he had 
been recognised without opposition by the prince who then 
reigned over Poland. Sigismund III., who succeeded 
Battory, had been elected in 1587. He was the son of 
John III., king of Sweden, and of Catherine Jagellon. 
In 1591 he inherited his father's crown. Although the 
grandson of Gustavus Vasa, who had introduced the 
Lutheran reformation into Sweden, Sigismund had imbibed 
from his mother an ardent zeal for the Catholic faith. In 
evidence of this, a Polish historian observes that, at his 
accession to the throne, his council was almost entirely 
composed of heretics, and that, at his death, only two of 
them remained in it.-f* Alarmed at his proselytising fervour, 
the Swedes, his new subjects, at the instigation of his 
uncle Charles, Duke of Sudermania, imputed to him projects 
which threatened danger to their creed. Sigismund, proud 
of his double crown 5 and strong in the cause which he 
maintained, did not treat the susceptibilities of the Swedes 

* Karanazin, vol. x. p. 118. — The Diet required that Feodor should 
assume the title of King of Poland in precedence of that of Tsar of 
Russia ; that he should, moreover, demand the benediction of the Pope ; 
and that he should give reason to hope that he would labour for the 
re-union of the two churches. See the Journals of the Diet of 1587. 

t Stan. Kobierzycki, Historia Vladislai, p. 4. 



SIGISMUND^S DEFEAT IN SWEDEN. 



27 



with sufficient tenderness, and their discontent soon burst 
into open revolt. He attempted to reduce them to sub- 
mission, but the Polish Diet stubbornly refused to meddle 
with a quarrel in which their king only was interested. He 
was defeated by the Duke of Sudermania, the leader of 
the rebels, in 1598, and compelled to sign a disgraceful 
capitulation at Stonegebro. Next year, the Estates of 
Sweden pronounced his forfeiture, and offered the crown to 
his son Ladislaus, on condition that the young prince should 
be educated at Stockholm, and, in conformity with the 
Lutheran religion. Sigismund obstinately rejected every 
offer of accommodation, and with the help of some assist- 
ance which he obtained from Poland, he persisted in carrying 
on the war.* 

The defeat of Sigismund in Sweden coincided with the 
extinction of the Varangian dynasty in Russia, and, 
although the Polish prince was ambitious, and believed 
that he had inherited Battory's military genius as well as 
his crown, he did not feel himself strong enough to disturb 
the election of Boris. The new Tsar took skilful advan- 
tage of the faults or misfortunes of his neighbour. In his 
relations with Poland he assumed a haughtier tone, and at 
first refused to recognise the right of Sigismund to the 
throne of Sweden ; but at the same time he superciliously 
repulsed the advances of the Duke of Sudermania, who 
had just been appointed Regent by the Estates. Faithful 
to his policy of temporisation, he avoided any open rupture 
with the two rival princes, but he joyfully watched the 
progress of a struggle which was exhausting the strength of 
both. A fifteen years' truce had just been sworn to between 
Poland and Russia; but it did not prevent Boris from 

* "He was a constant, generous and liberal prince, remarkably pious 
and devout, and so attached to the Catholic religion that he lost the crown 
of Sweden for its sake ; which led the Emperor, his brother-in-law 
(Ferdinand II.), to say that he had lost earth in order to gain heaven." 
Le Laboureur, Relation du Voyage de la Koyne de Pologne, part 2, p. 198. 

c 2 



2S 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



resuming his pretensions to Livonia, which the sabre of 
Battory had recently won from Ivan. This province was 
inundated by Russian emissaries, until an opportunity 
should present itself for regaining it by armed force. The 
Tsar lavished his gold in order to obtain partisans in the 
country ; he granted privileges to the Livonian merchants ; 
he received exiles with favour ; and in a word, he neglected 
no effort to increase his authority, and to present himself as 
an irresistible arbiter between the powers of the North. 

Among the means which he employed in order to attain 
this object, there was one which, in my opinion, exercised a 
fatal influence on the destiny of Russia, but the consequences 
of which it was then impossible to foresee. 

In addition to the two princes who were contending for the 
crown of Sweden, Sigismund and Charles, Duke of Suder- 
mania, there was a third, who also had pretensions to assert, 
which, perhaps, were more legitimate than those of the two 
first-named competitors. This was Gustavus Ericsen, son 
of Eric XIV., King of Sweden, and of Catherine Mansdotter, 
a woman of low birth, but who had, nevertheless, been ac- 
knowledged as Queen by the nation. He was scarcely a year 
old, when his father was attacked by violent madness, in 
consequence of which he was deposed and confined in a 
fortress, where he died in 1577, from the effects of poison, 
which was administered to him publicly, and in some sort 
with the solemn permission of the Estates of the realm.* 
Meanwhile the crown had been conferred on the brother of 
Eric, John III., the principal leader of the rebels, who, at 
his death, transmitted it to his son Sigismund, King of 
Poland. Gustavus shared the captivity of his father for some 
time, and was declared unworthy of the throne, "on account 
of his ignoble origin/' After escaping from his imprison- 
ment, and from the death to which he was destined by his 

* Messenius, Scandia Illustrata, vol. vii. pp. 10, 93, et seq. Geijer, 
History of Sweden, chap. xi. 



GUSTAVUS ERICSEN. 



29 



uncle, the usurper John III., he lived a wandering life for 
many years, travelling miserably from country to country, 
and exciting the curiosity, rather than the pity, of the various 
princes of the North by his misfortunes and his learning, 
which was then regarded as extraordinary.* It is said that 
he could speak all the languages of Europe with facility ; 
and he was also considered a great alchemist. While still quite 
young, he had been surnamed the New Paracelsus. Like 
most adepts in the occult sciences, he was reduced to beg his 
bread from the kings and noblemen whom he amused by 
his experiments, as he had no other ambition than to gain 
renown by his scientific discoveries, and felt more proud of his 
reputation as an alchemist than of his royal birth. One of 
the agents of Boris became acquainted with him at Thorn 
in 1599, and conducted him to Moscow with great 
honours. There he received magnificent presents, and a 
splendid retinue was assigned to him ; in short, he was 
treated like a prince — a legitimate prince. According to 
some historians, Boris even offered him the hand of his 
daughter Xenia, if he would consent to enter the com- 
munion of the Greek church, f But it is very unlikely that, 
as he wished to make him a candidate for the throne of 
Sweden, he would have placed such a formidable obstacle 
in his way as a change of religion. Besides, the Tsar soon 
discovered what sort of a man he had to deal with. Gustavus 
cared little for a crown, and was attached to his religion, and 
perhaps, still more so to a mistress whom he had brought 
with him into Russia. To cultivate the sciences in peaceful 

* He studied with, the Jesuits at Braunberg, Thorn, and Wilna, spending 
the days in their schools, and the nights in an inn where he gained his 
living by grooming horses. The MS. Journal of Eric XIV. , which is now 
possessed by the Library of Upsal, and which formerly belonged to 
Gustavus, was, it is said, left by its owner in pawn at Wilna, with an inn- 
keeper whom he was unable to pay otherwise. In 1596, Sigismund 
granted him a slight pension, which was moreover paid very irregularly. 
Comp. Messenius and Geijer, loc. ext. 

f Baer, pp. 13, et sec[. 



30 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



retirement was his only happiness — his sole ambition. Con- 
temporary authors represent him as a most singular man, — 
half a fool and half a philosopher ; something like Shaks- 
peare's iC melancholy Jaques." It was impossible to arouse 
him from his apathy , and make him a pretender. Boris soon 
got tired of him, and, having dismissed him to Ooglitch, 
ceased to think of him. 

I have quoted this anecdote, not only because it shows that 
the ambition of Boris, though timid, was ever active, but rather 
because the residence of Gustavus in Russia must have pro- 
duced some effect on the popular imagination, and prepared 
it for the romantic adventures of princes persecuted by tyrants 
and miraculously preserved by Providence. I do not know 
whether the name of King Sebastian, of Portugal, was then 
known in Russia, but at the close of the sixteenth century 
there were in Europe a number of impostors who pretended 
to be this prince, escaped from the disaster of Alcazar- 
Kebir.* Gustavus was a really legitimate prince, and 
his history surpassed that of the false Don Sebastian's, for 
marvellous details. Ke spoke Russian with great facility, 
and delighted in relating the dangers which had surrounded 
his infancy. He used to tell that he had been taken out of 
his cradle for the purpose of being sewn up in a sack and 
drowned, by order of the usurper ; and that, after the death 
of his father Eric, assassins in the pay of his persecutor, had 
frequently attempted to murder him. Rut in vain had they 
employed against him both steel and poison. God, he said, 
had twenty times delivered him from death, which appeared 
inevitable. He loved to relate his cruel sufferings, the abject 
fortunes which had been his lot, and the vulgar labours to 
which he had been obliged to submit, in order to earn his 

* The battle of Alcazar-Kebir, in which Don Sebastian disappeared, 
was fought in 157S. In 15P5. there was in Paris a false Don Sebastian, 
who probably received assistance from France, and made many dupes. 
Sully, Memoires, vol. iii. ed. 1752. 



GUSTAVUS ERICSEN. 



81 



bread, and instruct himself in the sciences. All these stories, 
commented upon, and embellished by passing from mouth to 
mouth, doubtless reached at length the ears of a man whose 
audacity and ambition awaited only a convenient form in 
which to display themselves. The marvellous belongs to all 
times, but every epoch has its own particular taste ; by 
judiciously flattering it, the multitude may be at once im- 
pressed and gained over. A prince was then regarded as a 
privileged being, whose destiny was regulated by other laws 
than those which governed the rest of mankind. 



32 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



CHAPTER III. 



GOVERNMENT OF BORIS. — HIS ENCOURAGEMENT OF FOREIGNERS. — LAWS 

AGAINST DRUNKENNESS. 1 LAWS REGARDING SERFS. HIS CONDUCT 

TOWARDS THE NOBILITY. — HIS GREAT UNPOPULARITY. — FAMINE AND 
PESTILENCE OF 1601 — 1603. 

Revolutions, like diseases, indicate their approach by a 
kind of vague uneasiness, the importance of which is rarely 
comprehended until it is manifested by its results. Never 
had the government of Boris met with fewer obstacles ; 
never had the authority of a Tsar appeared more firmly 
established. At peace with foreign powers, and quietly 
watching the conflicts of his neighbours, he applied himself 
to the task of civilising his people, of encouraging commerce, 
and of establishing an exact system of police in all the 
provinces of his empire. Every one of his acts was received 
with submission and executed with alacrity ; but, neverthe- 
less, all minds were agitated by a secret disquietude. The 
Tsar could not conceal from himself the aversion with which 
he was regarded by the Russians ; all classes, nobles and 
serfs, alike detested him. He saw all his intentions, all his 
decrees, interpreted as violations of the laws of the country. 
At this period of benighted ignorance, the Russians, even 
of the higher classes, regarded foreigners with a kind of 
superstitious horror. They made no difference between a 
foreigner and an infidel, and applied the name of pagan* 

* Bousourman and Pogano'i. — Korol Poganoi, the Pagan king, was the 
name by which the Kussians long designated the king of Poland. 



POLICY OF BORIS. 



35 



indiscriminately to the idolatrous Tcheremiss, the Mussul- 
man Tartar, and the Lutheran or Catholic German. Love 
of their country, or, to speak more correctly, of their native 
soil, was confounded by them with their attachment to their 
national religion. They called themselves the Orthodox 
People, and their country Holy Russia. Elsewhere than in 
that privileged land it was impossible, they believed, to 
obtain salvation. The early troubles of the Reformation in 
Germany had brought into Russia a large number of poor 
adventurers, who had sought to turn their superior know- 
ledge to account. The people were not slow to perceive the 
pre-eminence of these foreigners in the arts and industry,"* 
but they only detested them the more on this account. The 
Germans were continually charged hy the vulgar herd with 
a desire to corrupt the national faith, and to appropriate to 
themselves the wealth of the country. Boris, indeed, flat- 
tered them and invited them into his dominions, feeling that 
he had need of them to guide his subjects towards a higher 
stage of civilisation. But the commercial privileges and 
facilities which he granted to Livonian and German mer- 
chantsf only served as a pretext to the most terrible accu- 
sation which could be brought against a sovereign — that of 
betraying his country and his religion. He sent eighteen 
young gentlemen to study in Germany, France, and Eng- 
land ; their families lamented them as doomed victims.^ 
On either side of the frontier, all contact with foreigners 
was deemed a pollution. 

The fiscal measures, which accompanied these attempts at 
reform, rendered them even more odious. Drunkenness, 
that endemic vice of ungenial climates, had been frequently 
opposed, but always unsuccessfully, by the instructions of 
the clergy and the decrees of the Tsars. Boris wished to 

* Hence the popular expression, NiemetsJca'ia rabota, a German work, 
for every valuable production, 
f Baer, p. 13. + Petre'ius, p. 272. Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 114. 

c 3 



34 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



outdo the regulations of his predecessors in this respect ; but 
he defeated his object by establishing a government mo- 
nopoly of brandy. The people continued to get drunk, but 
thenceforward in licensed dram-shops. He was excessively 
severe in punishing smuggling, and publicly declared " that 
he might perhaps pardon a highway-robber, but he never 
would forgive a fraudulent publican."" * Nevertheless, their 
number was considerable, and many noblemen were not 
ashamed to favour the illicit traffic in strong liquors. 
Whilst the nobles regarded the abolition of this fruitful source 
of revenue with discontent, the common people cursed the 
prince who had attempted to limit, and even to prohibit, 
their indulgence in their cherished enjoyment. 

I must not forget to mention a still more important 
grievance of the Muscovites against their sovereign. Before 
the reign of Feodor, the Russian peasant was unable to hold 
any real property, but lie was master of his person, and when 
he entered the service of a gentleman or merchant, he en- 
gaged himself only for a limited time, and was free at cer- 
tain epochs to break off this contract and seek a new master. 
Feodor, or rather Boris in his name, had attached the 
peasants to the soil, and deprived them of the right to change 
their residence. This great measure, which passed at first 
almost unperceived, dates from 1593, and is even at the 
present day only imperfectly known in many of its details. 
It would appear that its consequences were quite unforeseen, 
and that it was merely intended to arrest the general emi- 
gration to the fertile provinces of the south, which threatened 
to depopulate those of the north. It was, moreover, found 
indispensable, it is said, to put a check on the propensity of 
the Russian peasant towards a nomadic life, in order to 
supply the villages with a fixed population, interested in the 
cultivation of a territory which they could no longer leave 
at will. Events proved the shortsightedness of these 

* Baer, p. 12. Kararazin, vol. xi. p. 112. 



LAWS REGARDING SERFS. 



35 



calculations. In contempt of the new law, a vast number of 
peasants fled in order to escape from serfage, and easily 
found an asylum on the estates of proprietors who were in 
want of hands to cultivate their domains. 

In 1597, Boris, by a new edict, directed that the strictest 
search should be made for the fugitive serfs. Hence resulted 
an intolerable inquisition, as odious to the landowners as to 
the peasants themselves. The former complained that they 
were deprived of the means of cultivating their estates ; the 
latter regretted the liberty or license of bygone times. Be- 
sides, no one was safe from the institution of claims and 
pursuits; and from this resulted numberless acts of fraud and 
violence, quickly followed by the interference of the govern- 
ment, which was always suspected of partiality in the 
examination of the titles of proprietors. The general dis- 
content had reached such a height in 1601, that Boris found 
himself obliged to modify the previous edict. He allowed the 
peasants of the nobles of inferior rank to change masters, 
under certain restrictions, at determinate periods, and in 
small numbers ; that is to say, only two serfs of the same 
proprietor at a time, on St. George's day. # 

With regard to the serfs of the crown, the clergy, the 
Boyards, and the higher nobility, the effect of the edicts of 
1593 and 1597 was maintained in all its severity ; and it 
would appear that their execution was marked by acts of 
crying injustice. The superior nobles found themselves humi- 
liated ; the Boyards and other great landowners felt them- 
selves injured in their material interests, as they were no 
longer able, even for money, to obtain as many labourers as 
they had formerly possessed. In fine, the instability of the 
legislation on a point which concerned the fortunes of all, 
caused general apprehension, and new attacks were daily 

* Iourii den. The privilege of St. George's day is still celebrated in 
popular traditions. See Appendix B. 



36 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



expected upon the national usages, which an order of the 
Tsar might change into criminal abuses."* 

Although he was not ignorant of the feelings of the Rus- 
sians towards himself, Boris did not apprehend any popular 
insurrection. The severe punishment of the inhabitants of 
Ooglitch had left a lasting impression upon all minds. But, 
as he had given the example in his own person of a private 
individual wearing the crown of Monomachus, he fancied 
he saw in all the Boyards pretenders to the Empire. His 
distrust was extreme, and he made no attempt to dissemble 
it. Ivan III. had struck a terrible blow at the ancient 
nobility. In order to destroy the prestige of birth in the 
eyes of the nation, and to reduce the power of the feudal 
lords — among whom many might claim, with as much 
reason as himself, to be sprung from the blood of Rurik — he 
had invented a new personal nobility, which took precedence 
of the hereditary nobility. With this view he instituted 
court offices, and established grades among the gentlemen of 
the whole Empire. The grade attached to a particular office 
was called Tchin — a word of Chinese origin, it is said, as the 
Slavic language furnished no term to express this new method 
of distinguishing men by the mere favour of the sovereign. 
Ivan was careful to place several parvenus in the highest 
ranks, and to change" at will the orders of precedence sanc- 
tioned by established usage, in the hope that the people 
would grow accustomed to pay respect only to the men of 
his choice. But it takes a long while to eradicate ancient 
prejudices. Boris, finding them still full of vigour, made it 
his endeavour to extinguish those great families whose names 
remained surrounded by popular admiration and regard. 
He would not allow any nobleman of ancient descent to 
marry without the express permission of the Tsar, and this 
permission w T as not easily granted. Boris obstinately refused 

* Eousska'ia Istoriia, vol. ii. p. 94. Karamzin, vol. x. p. 280 ; vol. xi. 
p. 110. 



CONDUCT OF BORIS TO THE NOBLES. 



37 



it to the Princes Schuisky, to Prince Mstislavski, and to 
several other Boyards of distinguished ancestry, whose names 
were dear to the people. He required that those noblemen, 
whose birth or wealth rendered them objects of suspicion, 
should be particularly assiduous and enthusiastic in their 
attendance on his person ; and, in proportion as his mistrust 
increased, he exacted stronger marks of devotedness, that is 
to say, more startling avowals of servitude. Departure from 
Court without leave was regarded as a proof of rebellion, 
and every assembly of gentlemen, either for a hunting-party 
or a banquet, was looked upon as a conspiracy. A secret 
police, directed by Semen Gpdounof, one of the relatives of 
the Tsar, found its way into the most intimate meetings, 
and denounced every symptom of disaffection. Every day 
it became necessary to exceed former expressions of love for 
the sovereign, and to outdo the base servility of all com- 
petitors. Boris even attempted to accustom the Russian 
nation to venerate him as the image of a deity upon earth, 
and himself composed a form of prayer to be repeated in 
every family at meal-times : 44 For the safety of the body 
and soul of the only Christian monarch in the universe, 
whom all other sovereigns serve as slaves ; whose mind is 
an abyss of wisdom, and whose heart is full of love and 
gentleness." * Those who omitted these ridiculous suppli- 
cations were exposed to serious dangers and terrible pun- 
ishments. 

Meanwhile, although no one failed to recite these hypo- 
critical prayers, Boris was not the less detested ; the most 
absurd calumnies against his administration were still re- 
ceived with the same eager readiness, and the most trans- 
parent falsehood gained credence when it was told of the 
Tsar. Boris, after setting aside the apathetic Gustavus, 
had thought of bestowing the hand of his daughter Xenia 

* See, in Karanizin, vol. xi. p. 122, the whole of this prayer, which is 
very long, and composed entirely in this emphatic style. 



38 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



on Duke John of Denmark. He would thus obtain a 
means of action against Sweden by a matrimonial alliance 
with the son of a sovereign who was the natural enemy of 
that kingdom. At first, a shout of reprobation was uttered 
by all devout believers. " Duke John was a Lutheran ! 
His future father-in-law was therefore a heretic ! " — Never- 
theless the good looks of the prince, and the adroit compli- 
ments which he paid to the national vanity, gained over 
even the most prejudiced; and Duke John had become 
very popular, when, after a grand banquet at which he had 
drunk largely, according to the custom of the North, he fell 
dangerously ill, and died almost suddenly a few days before 
the time fixed for the celebration of his marriage. It was 
immediately affirmed that the Tsar had poisoned him ; and 
in proof of this statement, it was urged that, contrary to the 
custom of his country, the Duke had not been embalmed, 
and that an order from the Tsar had forbidden the phy- 
sician to undertake a post-mortem examination of the 
body.* In reality, Boris had merely obeyed a religious 
scruple, which led him to regard the artificial preservation 
of our mortal remains as an act of opposition to the will of 
Providence. Thus the ingenious malice of the people 
turned against him not only his efforts to civilise his subjects, 
but even his weakness in respecting their prejudices. And 
yet what interest could Boris have had in the death of a 
prince whom he had himself chosen for his son-in-law, and 
whom he was desirous to associate in his political plans ? — 
He was jealous, it was answered, of the affection which the 
Russians felt for John of Denmark, and he feared that they 
might take him for their liberator. In fact, a liberator was 
sought in every direction by the nation, which was divided 
between the hatred and the dread which it felt for its 
master. There was no hope, moreover, that natural causes 
would lead to a speedy change ; Boris was scarcely fifty 

* Margeret, p. 109. Annals of Nikon. Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 65. 



FAMINE AND PESTILENCE. 



39 



years old, and his son Feodor, a young man of clear and in- 
telligent mind,* seemed destined to continue his govern- 
ment. Boris himself was instructing him in the art of 
ruling: he allowed him to be present at the meetings of his 
council, and took pleasure in initiating him into the secrets 
of his policy. Although Feodor was of a gentle and kind 
disposition, no one doubted that he would one day become 
as absolute a despot as Boris. As he was an enthusiastic 
admirer of his father, from filial piety, he would have felt it 
his duty to imitate him in all things. 

A great scourge, which at this period devastated Russia, 
carried the national exasperation to its height. During 
three consecutive years, from 1601 to 1603, famine and 
pestilence, its constant companion, made frightful ravages 
throughout the land. Notwithstanding all his efforts to 
relieve the people, who were being decimated by the epi- 
demic, Boris was, as usual, rendered responsible for the 
public calamity. — It too frequently happens, that, under 
such circumstances, precautions and remedies against the 
evil are unwisely arranged, and bear witness to the precipita- 
tion and terror which occupy all minds. This was the case 
in the present instance. The Tsar, intent especially upon 
the preservation of his capital, ordered money and provi- 
sions to be distributed among the inhabitants of Moscow. 
Immediately, a hungry multitude hastened thither from all 
the provinces, and the evil increased with twofold violence. 
If we may believe the Russian annalists, 120,000 persons 
perished in Moscow alone.-)- Many contemporary writers, 

* Feodor was, it is said, very accomplished. He drew very well, and 
there exists a manuscript map of Russia done by him, which is certainly 
one of the first ever drawn, and which is remarkable for the time at which 
it was produced. M. Oustrialof has given a fac-simile of it in the 
Skazaniia o Dimitrii samozvantse, vol. v. 

+ Palitsyne, pp. 10, 11. Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 145, on the authority of 
Baer, p. 39, estimates the number of the dead at 500,000 ; an exaggeration 
which it is useless to refute. 



40 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



eye-witnesses of what they relate, describe the most terrible 
scenes of anthropophagy.* At length the plague ceased, 
during the summer of 1603, and it was impossible not to 
admit that the Tsar had done all that it was in the power 
of mortal man to do_, and that he had spared neither trea- 
sure nor personal exertions to relieve the misery of his sub- 
jects. It was even confessed that, but for him, the disaster 
would have been far more calamitous ; but nevertheless, 
this fearful scourge was regarded as a menacing presage of 
his fate. Heaven thus announced, it was said, the destruc- 
tion of a prince, who had been raised to such a pitch of 
power only that his downfal might be rendered more 
strikingly tremendous, f 



Baer, p. 38. Margeret, p. 105. 



f Baer, p. 43. 



THE FIRST FALSE DEMETRIUS. 



41 



CHAPTEE IV. 

APPEARANCE OP THE FIRST DEMETRIAN PRETENDER. — HIS CREDENTIALS. — ■ 
HIS RECEPTION BY THE POLISH NOBLES. — THE COSSACKS. — ALARM OP 
BORIS. — INTRODUCTION OF DEMETRIUS TO THE PALATINE OF SENDOMIR. — 
HIS RELATIONS WITH THE JESUITS AND THE PAPAL NUNCIO. — HIS 
RECEPTION BY THE KING OF POLAND. — GREGORY OTREPIEF. — DEMETRIUS 
MARCHES INTO RUSSIA. 

Suddenly, a surprising rumour was brought from the 
frontiers of Lithuania, and spread with incredible rapidity 
through all the provinces of the Empire. The Tsarevitch 
Demetrius, who was believed to have been assassinated at 
Ooglitch, was still living in Poland. Having been favourably 
received by a palatine, he had made himself known to the 
principal nobles of the republic, and was preparing to re- 
claim his hereditary throne. It was related that he had wan- 
dered for some time in Russia, concealed beneath the frock 
of a monk. The archimandrite of the Convent of the 
Saviour at Novgorod- Severski had given him a lodging 
without recognising him. The prince had proceeded from 
thence to Kief, leaving in his cell a note, in which he de- 
clared that he was Demetrius, the son of Ivan the Terrible, 
and that he would one day recompense the hospitality of 
the archimandrite.* On the other hand, it was stated, that 
persons worthy of belief had seen the Tsarevitch among the 
Zaporogue Cossacks, taking part in their military expedi- 
tions, and distinguishing himself by his courage and address 
in all warlike exercises. The name of the ataman under 



* Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 164. 



42 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



whose orders he had enrolled himself was also given. * Other 
authorities declared that they had seen the same personage, 
at the same time, studying Latin at Huszcza, a small town 
in Volhynia.f Though reports were contradictory as to 
details, they all agreed on this one point — that Demetrius 
was still living, and that he intended to call the usurper to 
account for all his crimes. 

About the middle of the year 16 03, at Brahin in Lithu- 
ania, a young man who had been for some time attached to 
the service of Prince Adam Wiszniowiecki, in the capacity 
of equerry or valet de chambre, declared to him that he was 
the Tsarevitch Demetrius. He related that a physician 
named Simon,J a Wallachian or German by birth, having 
become acquainted with the sinister designs of Boris, or 
rather having received large offers from him to destroy the 
life of the presumptive heir, had feigned consent in order 
that he might better frustrate the plans of the tyrant. On 
the night fixed for the assassination, this faithful servant had 
placed in the bed of the Tsarevitch the child of a serf, of 
about the same age, who had been put to death. Feeling 
convinced that Feodor was so completely under the influence 
of Boris that it would be impossible to obtain justice from 
him, the physician had fled from Ooglitch with young 
Demetrius ; and had afterwards confided him to the care of 
a gentleman devotedly attached to his family, who, in order 
to guard him more effectually from the hatred of Boris, had 
made him enter a convent. The physician was dead, as 
well as the gentleman to whom he had confided the prince. 
In the absence of these two witnesses, the unknown produced 

* This ataman is named G-heras Evanghel, in a letter from the Patriarch 
Job. Kararnzin, vol, xi. p. 164. 

*T Memcewicz, Life of Sigismund III., vol. vi. p. 238, on the authority 
of a manuscript narrative by a Samogitian gentleman named Towianski. 

X Grevenbrouch, Tragsedia Moschovitica, pp. 9-11, says that this man 
was either the governor of the prince, or his steward, aulce magister. He 
also states that Demetrius had served as cook to a Pole named Golski. 



CREDENTIALS OF THE PRETENDER. 



43 



a Russian sea], bearing the name and arms of the Tsarevitch, 
and a golden cross adorned with precious stones of consider- 
able value. This, he said, was the present which, according 
to Russian usage, he had received from his godfather, 
Prince Ivan Mstislavski, on the day of his baptism.* 

The young man who declared that he was the son of 
Ivan, appeared to be about twenty or twenty-two years of 

* Gos. Gramoty, Letter of Demetrius to the voyvodes of Siberia, vol. ii. 
p. 201; examination of Mniszek, vol. ii. p. 294. Peyerle, p. 3. Baer, 
p. 35. Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 169. According to a manuscript narrative 
quoted by ISTierucewicz, Life of Sigismund III., vol. vi. p. 238, and attri- 
buted to a Samogitian gentleman named Towianski, "Demetrius, being 
forewarned by his physician and concealed by his care behind a stove, had 
seen the assassins murder the slave who had been placed in his bed. On 
being taken from Ooglitch, Demetrius was conducted first of all into the 
Ukraine, to the residence of Prince Ivan Mstislavski. "When his protectors 
were dead, the Tsarevitch, in compliance with their last counsels, deter- 
mined to proceed to Lithuania, but previously, in company with some 
vagabond monks, he paid a visit to Moscow, which he left to go to Vologda. 
He was travelling from that town when he entered the service of 
Wiszniowiecki." All these details have their interest, for they are given 
by a contemporary who perhaps had learned them from the very mouth of 
the man who passed himself off as Demetrius. They do not differ essen- 
tially from the version of Peyerle, who obtained his information from the 
confidants of the pretended Tsarevitch. At all events, the fable is a coarse 
one ; and I find it rather difficult to believe that the impostor could have 
entered into details which might be compromising. In fact, how came 
Prince Ivan Mstislavski, the godfather of Demetrius, to be in the Ukraine, 
a Polish province, in 1591 1 How came the Tsarevitch to pass through 
Moscow and Vologda, on his way into Lithuania from the Ukraine 1 — It 
must be observed that the pretended Demetrius was not acquainted with 
the Ooglitch inquiry, which he might have turned to some account. 
It would appear that it was kept very secret at this period, for neither 
Baer nor Petre'ius was acquainted with it. The latter (who believes that 
the impostor was an unfrocked monk) relates that the assassination of the 
Tsarevitch took place during the night : " In einer nacht legten sie feuer 
in der Stadtan ; " Muss. Chronic, vol. ii. p. 267. This was also the official 
version of the partisans of the pretender, as the night alone would render 
possible the substitution of a child. Now, it is proved by numerous 
testimonies and by a multitude of accessory circumstances, that Demetrius 
died, or was assassinated, in the day-time. For instance, it was at the 
dinner hour ; the Tsarina had just returned from mass ; Michael Nagoi 
left the dinner-table ; the child was playing in the court-yard of the 
palace, &c. 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



age. If Demetrius had lived, he would have been twenty- 
two years old in 1603.* He was small of stature, but broad- 
shouldered, and possessed of remarkable vigour and agility. 
His hair was sandy, indeed, almost red in colour ; t his eyes 
were of a pale blue, and yet his complexion was very swarthy, 
as is frequently the case with the inhabitants of cold countries. 
It was well known that Maria Fedorovna, the mother of 
Demetrius, was quite a brunette, and that Ivan the Terrible 
was rather below the middle height. Those who remembered 
the Tsar Ivan perceived a family likeness in the face of the 
unknown ; and yet, the Tsar was a handsome man, whilst 
the features of his pretended son were not at all prepos- 
sessing. Several of his contemporaries who had frequent 
opportunities of seeing him, represent him to have had a 
large face, prominent cheek-bones, a flat nose, thick lips, and 
little or no beard ; and this description corresponds almost 
exactly with his portrait in the Academy of St. Petersburg!], 
and with an engraving published in Poland in 1606.J We 
notice in it, as it were, an exaggeration of the Slavic type, 
associated with an expression of remarkable firmness and 
energy. The unknown further exhibited two warts which 
he had, one on his forehead, and the other under his right 
eye. One of his arms, also, was rather longer than the 
other. All these signs, apparently, were well known to have 
been remarked in the child who had died at Ooglitch.§ 

* For all these details I adopt the testimony of contemporaries ; and 
among these writers, I prefer those who personally knew the pretender. 
Petrei'us alone, who had probably never seen him, says that he appeared 
to be more than thirty years of age: "Der ander allzeit ober 30 Jahr 
alt ist ; " Muss. Chronic., vol. ii. p. 370. The colour of his complexion 
has been disputed, but I regard as decisive the testimony of Margeret, the 
captain of his guards, who says, p. 141, that he was " brown of complexion." 

f Cilli, p. 14. 

X A copy of this very rare engraving exists in the Polish Library at 
Paris. I am indebted for its communication to the kindness of M. Sink- 
iewicz, the learned curator of this collection. 

§ Gos. Gramoty; examination of Mniszek, vol. ii. p. 294. Margeret, 
p. 141. I do not know whether there exists a portrait of the true 



FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE PRETENDER. 



45 



Contemporary authors give very different accounts of the 
comedy of which Prince Adam Wiszniowiecki was the first 
dupe. According to some authorities, the stranger, whom 
I shall henceforward call Demetrius, as I can give him no 
other name, pretended to fall seriously ill, asked for a 
confessor, and revealed to him that at the head of his bed 
there was a bundle of papers which would make known his 
birth. He added that he desired to be interred with the 
honours due to the son of a king. The confessor, who, 
according to some Russian historians, was a Jesuit, and 
according to others, a priest of the Greek church, hastened 
to communicate this secret to Prince Wiszniowiecki. Such 
is the version accredited by Karamzin, and borrowed from 
annalists who wrote a considerable time after the event.* 
The following account, handed down to us by a contemporary 
who was personally acquainted with Demetrius and his 
Polish allies, though it probably does not deserve greater 
confidence, is nevertheless recommended by the colouring of 
a popular tradition which it is impossible to neglect. 

64 One day, at Brahin, while Prince Adam Wiszniowiecki 
was in his bath, a young valet de chamhre, who had been for 
some time in his service, forgot to bring him something 
which he had ordered. Irritated at this want of attention, 

Demetrius ; but, from what we know of Russian paintings at this period, 
it is impossible to suppose that we could draw any certain conclusions 
from a portrait ; and besides, how could we verify the resemblance of a 
young man of twenty-two years old to a child of ten ? — In the report of 
the inquiry held at Ooglitch, we do not find the slightest information 
regarding the characteristic marks of the Tsarevitch ; but as the false 
Demetrius made a parade of them, it appears evident to me that they 
must have been well known, and I should not be indisposed to believe 
that they had become known by the public exhibition of some portrait. 
That it was the custom to paint the portraits of celebrated personages is 
attested by numerous examples : the portrait of Prince Skopin Schuisky, 
who died in 1610, is still preserved. M. Moltchanof published a lithograph 
of it in the Zolkiewski MSS. 

* Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 168, on the authority of Nikon, p. 58. Guess 
who can what these papers were ; they are never mentioned in the sequel. 



46 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



the prince gave him a box on the ears, and called him by 
an opprobrious name. The young man, in great emotion 
and with tears in his eyes, exclaimed : Ci Ah ! Prince Adam, 
if you knew who was serving you, you would not treat me 
in this way. But alas! I must endure every indignity, as 
I have taken upon myself the duties of a servant." " Who 
are you ? " inquired Wiszniowiecki, u and whence do you 
come?" f I am the Tsarevitch Demetrius, the son of 
Ivan Vassilievitch." Then he related the story of his 
miraculous escape, and showed his baptismal cross enriched 
with diamonds. The prince was thunderstruck, but he 
believed all that this modest and good-looking young man 
had told him. He began by begging his pardon for the 
blow and the insulting epithet which he had used towards 
him, and then he begged him to remain in the bath-room 
and await his return. Immediately he ran to seek his wife, 
and ordered her to prepare a magnificent repast, for he 
expected to have the Tsar of Muscovy as his guest that 
very evening. Whilst the princess was expressing her 
astonishment at this sudden journey of the Tsar of Russia, 
her husband ordered six of his handsomest saddle-horses, 
dapple-grey in colour, to be harnessed, and commanded 
that each of them should be led by a groom dressed as 
magnificently as possible. He further directed that a 
travelling-carriage should be prepared, and fitted luxuriously 
with cushions and costly carpets.* Lastly, he returned 
into the bath-room, followed by twelve servants, bearing 
caftans of brocade, pelisses of sable, and arms encrusted 
with gold. He respectfully assisted his ex-valet-de-chambre 
to put on the richest dress, and then made him a present of 
the horses, carriage, and the rest. " Will your majesty," 

* At that time there were no seats in the carriages. The occupants 
reposed on cushions and covered their legs with rich Persian carpets. 
Such are still the arrabahs in which the Turkish ladies take exercise in 
the neighbourhood of Constantinople. 



RECOGNITION OF THE IMPOSTOR. 



47 



be said, " deign to accept this trifle ; all that I possess is at 
your service. r> * — In this narrative, we find all the ordinary 
characteristics of the Slavic legend. Nothing is omitted, 
neither the trappings of the horses, nor the colour of the 
garments, nor the price of the furs. The dialogue of the 
heroes is repeated in the Homeric style. But why, beneath 
details thus embellished by an oriental imagination, should 
there not lie concealed a truly historical tradition ? 

Whatever were the means which Demetrius adopted for 
the revelation of his secret, the choice of his first confidant 
bore witness to his judgment and penetration. Prince 
Wiszniowiecki was sprung from the family of Jagellons ; was 
rich, well-connected, allied to all the great families of 
Lithuania and Poland, and moreover, generous, high- 
spirited and vain, — in a word, a true knight of the Middle 
Ages, somewhat out of place even at the beginning of the 
seventeenth century. Few efforts were required to persuade 
him that his guest was really the son of Ivan the Terrible. 
The diamond cross, which was of considerable value, 
appeared to him an irrefragable proof; such a jewel could 
belong to none but a Tsarevitch. He hastened to 
place his purse at the disposal of the young stranger, and 
quite proud to find himself the protector of an unfortunate 
prince, he took him to the residence of his brother, Prince 
Constantine, at Jalojicz. There, a new theatrical effect was 
in store for him ; a fugitive Russian, named Petrovski, a 
servant of the Chancellor of Lithuania, appeared in the 
very nick of time to declare that he had formerly been in 
the service of the Tsarevitch Demetrius, and that he 
recognized him perfectly by the signs which have already 
been indicated.f 

* Baer, p. 32. Petreius, p. 287. Cilli gives no details regarding the 
arrival of Demetrius in Lithuania. 

+ Gos. Gramoty, examination of Mniszek, vol. ii. p. 294. I do not know 
where this town or castle of Jalojicz is situated : it cannot be Jazlowicz in 
Gallicia. I suppose it was some castle in Lithuania. 



48 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



All doubts now ceased. The Polish nobles flocked to the 
residence of Prince Constantine Wiszniowiecki, to be pre- 
sented to the legitimate Tsar of all the Russias. All vied 
with one another in making him offers of service, and in 
receiving him with splendid festivities. Already, the more 
ardent talked of mounting their horses and invading Russia ; 
for these warlike nobles were beginning to be tired of the 
existing truce. Others, more prudent, advised the illustrious 
exile to proceed to Cracow, and apply to Sigismund for 
money and troops. On his part, Demetrius did nothing to 
belie his illustrious origin. Courteous, affable, and dignified, 
he appeared quite at his ease in his gorgeous dress, amidst 
the palatine nobles, accepting their services with the air of 
a king granting a favour, and with the assurance that he 
would one day recompense their devotedness. He spoke 
Polish as well, and, perhaps, even more fluently, than Rus- 
sian ; he knew a few words of Latin, wrote quickly and 
boldly, and this was quite enough, at that period, to prove 
that he had received a liberal education.* Moreover, he was 
thoroughly acquainted with Russian history : it was evident 
that he possessed an intimate knowledge of the genealogies of 
all the great families of the empire, and that their interests, 
rivalries, and varying fortunes had been made by him the 
subject of special study. In a word, he had diligently learned 
his part of a pretender, and played it admirably well. 
Skilful in deluding his hosts, he hinted, rather than openly 

* Compare Baer, Margeret, and Cilli, passim. With regard to his know- 
ledge of the Polish language, it will be seen by the collection of his letters 
that the greater part of his correspondence was conducted in Polish. 
Margeret, p. 163, says, "that he spoke as good Eussian as could be, except 
that, to adorn the language, he sometimes intermingled a Polish phrase. 
... He could not speak Latin at all." I do not know whether Margeret 
was a competent judge on this last point. On his side, Neri Giraldi wrote : 
" Parla benissimo Polacco, e Latino, e Moscovito suo naturale." ISTeri, 
according to all appearance, obtained this information from the Polish 
Jesuits who had frequently been near Demetrius. See the letter of Neri 
Giraldi to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Esame Critico, p. 56. 



EXCITEMENT OF THE COSSACKS. 



49 



avowed, a certain partiality for Polish civilisation, and spoke 
slightingly of the institutions of Russia, and even of the 
superstitions of the Greek Church. Finally, and this was 
no small merit in the eyes of a warlike nobility, he was an 
admirable horseman and an indefatigable hunter, and he ex- 
celled in all those exercises which require the display of 
dexterity or vigour.* 

It was not long before Boris heard of the appearance 
of a pretender on the frontiers, and of the reception he had 
met with in Poland. At first he thought he would have to 
deal only with a vulgar intriguer, who sought to make dupes 
for the purpose of obtaining money ; but, ere long, having 
received ampler information, he was compelled to admit that 
this impostor, whoever he might be, was not an enemy to be 
despised, and that he possessed every qualification of a 
party-leader. Whilst the Palatines were feasting Deme- 
trius with regal honours, a Russian monk was travelling 
through the villages of the Don Cossacks and the 
Zaporogues, urging them to arm in the name of the 
Tsarevitch, and announcing his speedy arrival among them. f 
We are not exactly aware of the motives which animated 
these warlike tribes with hatred against Boris; but his 
despotism, the severity of his police, his rigorous punish- 
ment of the slightest disregard of his authority, and, most of 
all, his persecution of all unlicensed distillers of brandy, were 
quite sufficient motives to excite the animosity of men so 
utterly undisciplined and so passionately attached to their wild 
independence. Besides, the monk talked of a great expedi- 
tion which was in preparation against Moscow, and kindled 

* "Demetrius obete sich in allerlei Ritterspiel, mit fechten, ringen, 
stechen, brechen, und turnieren : " Petre'ius, p. 286. "Rerum et anti- 
quitatis notitia major quam homini barbaro conveniret ; sermo promptus 
et expeditus, et ad conciliandam fidem accomodata oratio :" Stanislaus 
Lubienski, Epis. Plocensis, Opera Posthuma, p. 29. 

f Baer, pp. 32, 36, 45. Margeret, p. 152. 

D 



50 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR, 



hopes of rich booty : what more could be required to inflame 
the imaginations of all his hearers? 

At this period, the Cossacks formed several republics, 
which were called armies, * and some of which recognised 
the sovereignty of Russia, while others acknowledged that of 
Poland. After all, the Cossacks had only one country, and 
that was the sietch, or village, frequently variable in its 
site, in which they assembled on their return from their ex- 
peditions. They elected their own chieftains or atamans, to 
whom they gave as a sceptre a mace, f the ensign of com- 
mand. In time of peace, the ataman had no other authority 
but that of persuasion, but in time of war, his power was 
absolute and despotic. Such were, at a later period, the in- 
stitutions of the buccaneers, The Cossacks had adopted 
their organisation, and even their name, from their enemies 
the Tartars. Towards the end of the thirteenth century, 
the Slaves of the Ukraine, and of the banks of the Don, find- 
ing themselves exposed to the continual ravages of the Mus- 
sulmans, resolved, in order that they might be better able to 
oppose them, to adopt their military organisation, and their 
semi-nomadic customs. At first, they called themselves 
TcherkesseS) from a Turkish word, which signifies 

marauder but afterwards, when they had grown stronger, 
the name of Cossacks or warriors, in Turkish Kazakh pre- 
vailed among their hordes. Forming themselves in strict 

* For example, Donskoe vo'isko, VoljsJcoe vo'isko — the army of the Don, 
of the Volga. 

f Boulava, a Turkish word, I believe. 

X We have adopted the word Cossack from the Polish, but the Russians 
have retained that of Kazak. I have followed the opinion which appeared 
to me most probable, regarding the origin of the Cossacks. Some authors 
have endeavoured to derive it from barbarous nations unakin to the Slavic 
race. They base their theories upon very improbable etymologies. Thus, 
the Cossacks have been made to descend from the Karfayepol and Chozars, 
mentioned by the Byzantine historians. No explanation has been given, 
under this hypothesis, why the Cossacks never had any other language 
than that of the Slaves. See the Histoire des Kosaques, by M. Lesur. 



CUSTOMS OF THE COSSACKS. 



51 



adherence to the model of the Tartars, their inveterate 
enemies, they became formidable partisans, and yielded 
to their masters, neither in cunning, nor in courage, nor in 
ferocity. 

Most of the Don Cossacks were then foot-soldiers, and 
were considered excellent marksmen ; as such they were 
highly esteemed in the Russian armies, to which they 
hired their services.* Occasionally, however, they served 
as cavalry, and they had already begun to rear carefully, in 
their impenetrable marshes, a now celebrated race of 
unweariable horses, of which they made use in their distant 
expeditions. A fine horse was the only luxury known to 
the Cossack, who always dressed in rags, in order to deprive 
his enemy of even the hope of booty. It was a precept 
handed down from generation to generation among them, 
that they should strive to excite terror and to discourage 
cupidity. Far from imitating the warriors of the East, who 
adorn themselves with magnificent armour, the old atamans 
of the Don used to repeat to their younger comrades their 
favourite adage : " Polished steel attracts the eye," and taught 
them to take pride in muskets that were bronzed with smoke. 
But besides being excellent infantry and cavalry soldiers, 
the Cossacks were also intrepid sailors. The numerous 
estuaries of the Don concealed a flotilla which was always 
ready to carry devastation to a distance. Embarking on 
board their frail craft 5 they took advantage of the long nights 
and fogs of autumn to dash across the mouth of the river, in 
spite of the Turkish galleys and the forts bristling with 
cannon which the Porte had erected in order to shut them 
out from the sea. Aided by the lightness of their barques, 
which were built with very low weather-boards, carried a 
large latteen sail, and were manned with forty oars, they 
almost invariably succeeded in surprising or forcing a 
passage. Then, without any thought of return, they led the 

* Margeret, p. 86. 

d 2 



52 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



life of corsairs, and ruined the trade of the Black Sea. The 
largest Turkish vessels were frequently boarded by them 
before they were able to make use of their artillery. Some- 
times, disembarking suddenly on the coasts of the Crimea, 
the Cossacks pillaged villages, carried off captives, and dis- 
appeared before any alarm could be given. All the shores 
of the Black Sea trembled at the mere name of these pirates. 
More than once they carried their audacity so far as to 
penetrate even into the Bosphorus, and at the very gates of 
Constantinople they carried off Turkish pachas from the 
midst of their harems. Nothing could intimidate these 
terrible marauders, neither hostile fleets, nor the tempests 
which dashed their fragile vessels to pieces, nor the priva- 
tions of every kind which they endured during their cruises, 
upon a sea whose ports were all closed against them. This 
life of hazard and peril developed in them the energy and 
prudence of the savage. Knowing their tendency to 
drunkenness, they had made a law never to take any strong 
liquors with them on their expeditions, lest a moment of 
intoxication should betray them into the hands of their 
enemies. On their return, it is true, they compensated 
themselves for their fatigues by orgies which lasted several 
days. These men, though at war with all their neighbours, 
were religious after their own fashion. They never set out 
on a cruise without having implored the divine blessing, 
and on their return, their first care was to thank God and 
St. Nicholas for having brought them back in safety to the 
sietch. Their priests, as ignorant as themselves, told them 
that all their sins would be forgiven in consideration of the 
injuries which they inflicted on the infidels. With the 
practices of the Greek religion, to which they were strongly 
attached, they mingled many Mussulman or Pagan super- 
stitions. They believed in omens, in second-sight, in dreams, 
in benevolent and maleficent spirits. Just as Olympus and 
Pindus are regarded with superstitious respect and almost 



THE ZAPOROGUES. 



53 



worship by the Klepht, who finds an asylum among their 
crags, so the Don was to the Cossacks a kind of topical 
deity, the protector of their country and their liberty. They 
used to invoke it in their prayers, and to beseech it to grant 
them favourable fogs. In their wild songs, they had per- 
sonified it under the name of Don Ivanovitch. ts Farewell 
Don, son of Ivan ! " they cried as they darted into the 
Black Sea. 

Among the Cossacks, the Zaporogues * were what the 
Spartans were to the Lacedemonians; I mean, that they 
carried even to exaggeration all the virtues of the barbarian 
warrior. No women were admitted among them ; but they 
recruited their numbers by young men in quest of glory 
and plunder, by desperate gamesters, and by outlaws from 
all the frontiers. In order to obtain the reputation of a 
good Cossack, it was necessary to have passed some time in 
the school of the Zaporogues. According to the conditions 
of the period, their ataman called himself the vassal, some- 
times of Poland, sometimes of Russia, and sometimes even 
of the Ottoman Porte ; but in reality, he was a perfectly 
independent sovereign, who extended his ravages with 
impartiality over the dominions of all his neighbours, whether 
Tartars, Turks, Russians, Lithuanians or Poles.f 

The alliance of such soldiers was naturally much sought 
after ; for their hostility was dangerous. The success, there- 
fore, of the harangues of the monk among the Cossacks, 
greatly alarmed the prudent Boris. The surest way of 
quieting the agitation which was beginning to display itself 
among their hordes, was to remove the man whose cause 

* They inhabited the delta formed by the Dnieper and the Ingoulets, 
the point of which extended almost into the Black Sea between Otchakof 
and Islam Kerman. They derived their name from the geographical 
position of their territoiy : Zaporogues, ZaporogM, that is, persons living 
beyond the cataract (of the Dnieper). 

t Beauplan, Description d'Ukranie. Rousskaiia Starina, passim. See 
Appendix C. 



54 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



they were disposed to embrace. He accordingly sought to 
get hold of the pretended Tsarevitch, who had already been 
so well received in Lithuania. But he set about it very 
awkwardly in the first instance, by offering money and 
lands to the two Princes Wiszniowiecki, if they would 
deliver up the impostor. This was the true method to 
convince them that their guest was in reality the person 
whose name he had assumed, The generous Palatines 
indignantly dismissed the agents of Boris without deigning 
to send him an answer, and then hastened to conduct 
Demetrius into the interior of Poland, feeling persuaded 
that if he remained on the frontier, the Tsar would find 
means either to capture or assassinate him. When they 
believed that their guest was in safety, they informed him 
of the motive for their conduct. " My life is in your hands/' 
replied Demetrius. They swore never to abandon him.* 

Gonstantine Wiszniowiecki now took him to the residence 
of his father-in-law, George Mniszek, Palatine of Sendomir, 
who received him like a king. The identity of the exile 
with the Tsarevitch had already ceased to be called in 
question. At Sendomir, however, it received fresh con- 
firmation from the testimony of a Polish servant, an old 
soldier, who had been made prisoner by the Muscovites, at 
the siege of Pskof. He declared that, during his captivity 
at Ooglitch, he had frequently seen young Demetrius, and 
that he recognised him in the guest of the Palatine of 
Sendomir. f It is true that the siege of Pskof had occurred 
in 1579, during the war between Ivan and Battory, and 
before the birth of Demetrius. This prisoner must, there- 
fore, have been forgotten at Ooglitch long after the conclusion 
of the truce between Russia and Poland, and the exchange 
of prisoners which had ensued. But evidence was not then 
very strictly investigated, and this fresh recognition was 

* Baer, p. 35. Petreius, p. 289. 
t Gos. Gramoty, Examination of Mniszek, vol. ii, p, 294, 




MARINA MNISZEK 



Page 55. 



MARINA MNISZEK. 



55 



not disputed. Mniszek was a nobleman of high rank, but 
overwhelmed with debt, and with hardly any means to 
sustain his dignity with that splendour which was required 
by the customs of his country and the usages of the time. 
Whether he piously believed, with many of his countrymen, 
that Demetrius had been miraculously preserved from 
assassination, or whether he discerned in the young stranger 
thus introduced to him, the audacity and genius which 
ensure success even to the most hazardous enterprises, he 
immediately resolved to attach himself to him, and risk his 
whole remaining fortune on the chance of the gratitude of 
a Tsar. It appears certain, at all events, that he never 
obtained any confidential communication from Demetrius, 
whose real origin remained to him. as well as to all his con- 
temporaries, surrounded by impenetrable mystery. 

Marina, the youngest daughter of Mniszek, was not yet 
married.* She was remarkable for her gracefulness and 
beauty among the women of her country, of whom a great 
Russian poet has said : " No ! there is not a king's daughter 
who can compare with a young Polish maiden. Playful ! 
one might say she was a kitten gambolling around a stove ; 
pink as the rose-bud, white as cream, with eyes that sparkle 
like two torches." f Can we be surprised that the attrac- 
tions of Marina produced a powerful impression upon 
Demetrius. The Palatine joyfully perceived this, and 
encouraged his nascent passion by inviting him to spend 
several weeks in his palace. Meanwhile, lie set himself to 
study the character of his guest, to learn his plans, and to 
calculate his chances of success. Demetrius exhibited the 
greatest boldness and assurance, and was already busy in 
determining the course of conduct to be pursued by him 
when at Moscow, on his hereditary throne. He appeared 
to be thoroughly acquainted with the internal condition of 

* The eldest was the wife of Prince Constantine Wiszniowiecki. 
f Poushkin : " Boudrys i ego synovyia." 



56 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



Russia, and at length he admitted the Palatine into his 
confidence, by showing him the letters which he had 
received from his agent the monk, from the atamans of the 
Don, and from the disaffected on the other side of the 
frontier. Mniszek, thoroughly gained over, thenceforward 
devoted his whole attention to preparing the Court of 
Cracow for the reception of the Tsarevitch, and neglected 
no efforts to enlist the sympathies of the nobles, and make 
sure of the favour of the king. 

The man who could exercise the greatest influence over 
pious Sigismund was the Papal nuncio, Claudio Rangoni, 
bishop of Reggio. Fully aware of the utility of such a 
protector, Demetrius addressed himself directly to him, but 
his first letters were left unanswered.* Less enthusiastic 
than the Polish nobles, the Italian prelate was desirous to 
have a thorough knowledge of this pretender to the throne 
of Russia, before committing himself to any expression of 
interest which might prove compromising at a future period. 
Nevertheless his curiosity was unquestionably excited by 
the very strangeness of the adventure, and several eccle- 
siastics, especially some Jesuits of Sendomir, received orders 
to enter into communication with Demetrius. Until then, 
the latter, although making a public profession of the Greek 
religion, had merely allowed the Polish nobles to guess that 
he was favourable to great religious tolerance, and even that 
he felt a certain amount of admiration for the Catholic faith; 
but as soon as he found himself in relation with the Jesuit 
fathers, he became much less reserved, and willingly con- 
sented to become their catechumen, although requiring that 
it should be kept a secret ; for a public abjuration would 
infallibly have ruined him in the opinion of the Russians. 
His conversion was prompt, and it is doubtful whether it 
was sincere ; at all events, he promised that, when restored 
to the throne of his ancestors, he would use his best efforts 



* Cilli, p. 9. 



ARGUMENTS OF HIS ADHERENTS. 



57 



to extirpate schism in Russia. On receiving this assurance, 
which was transmitted to him without delay by the Jesuits, 
the nuncio sent a gracious answer to the overtures of 
Demetrius, and undertook to support his pretensions by 
recommending him to the favour of the king, and of the 
Diet which was about to assemble.* 

Among the Polish nobles, a certain number had received 
with considerable coldness the rather vague account given 
by Demetrius of his escape from Ooglitch, as well as the 
proofs, which were all more or less questionable, of his 
identity with the son of Ivan the Terrible. At the head of 
these unbelievers was the Chancellor Zamoiski, a man of 
great influence. The politicians of the Court of Sigismund, 
without giving any opinion upon the rights of the man who 
claimed to be the Tsarevitch, thought that it would be 
imprudent to quarrel with Russia, in order to bestow a crown 
on the son of a prince who had never done anything but 
harm to Poland ; and that, a fortiori, it would be unwise to 
break with Boris, on account of an unknown individual who 
might, after all, prove an impostor. Without attempting 
to convince the incredulous, Demetrius and his adherents 
spared no pains to gain them over to his interests. To some 
they represented that it was a favourable opportunity for 
exercising great influence over Russia, and that it was of 
little importance to examine whether the guest of Mniszek 
was or was not the son of the Tsar, provided that he had a 
numerous and powerful party in his own country. A 
pretender, even if he were an impostor, would be, in the 
hands of the King of Poland, a useful auxiliary, to frighten 
Boris, and compel him to concede all those points which were 
still in dispute between the two governments. To the zealous 
and devout, they depicted the great advantages which would 
accrue to the true religion from the establishment of a 
Catholic prince on the throne of Russia. The Polish bishops 

* Cilli, p. 9. Esame Critico, p. 17. 

» a 



58 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



and Jesuits spoke of the conversion of Demetrius as an 
undeniable fact ; and gave every assurance of his fervour 
and sincerity. As for the difficulties which he would 
experience in changing the faith of his subjects, they did not 
dwell upon them for a moment. Would it not be easy, they 
said, in order to accommodate it to the ancient usages of the 
Muscovites, to make a few alterations in the forms of the 
liturgy, similar to those which had sufficed to quiet the 
scruples of those Lithuanians and Poles who now formed 
part of the Catholic Church, under the name of United 
Greeks ? In a word, to adopt the cause of Demetrius was to 
promote the aggrandisement of Poland, and to ensure the 
triumph of the true faith. 

It is not improbable that, in order to gain over, by flatter- 
ing their national vanity, those Poles who refused to believe 
that Demetrius was the son of Ivan, a new fable was invented 
to lend an interest of another kind to the justly suspected ad- 
venturer. The report was spread that this young man was 
a natural son of Stephen Battory. His boldness, his intel- 
ligence, and the facility with which he spoke the Polish 
language, seemed to confirm this origin. It would probably 
establish him more surely in the affections of the old soldiers 
who had fought under the orders of Stephen, and the idea 
of seating a Pole on the throne of the Tsars was too flatter- 
ing to their pride for them to refuse to become accom- 
plices in so sublime an act of trickery.* 

The Turkish empire still threatened danger to Europe in 
the seventeenth century. In 1683 Vienna beheld an Ottoman 
army at her gates. To drive the Turks back towards Asia, 

* Baer, p. 104, relates that John Sapieha, when one day boasting of the 
bravery of his fellow-countrymen, addressed him in these words : ei We 
have given the Russians an adventurer for their Tsar, and though they 
split with rage, they shall have no master but such as we please." Baer 
further says, p. 32, that he had heard from several Polish nobles that 
Demetrius was the son of Battory. Petre'ius repeats this story, but does 
not believe it. 



FATHER POSSEVTN. 



59 



or merely to preserve from their incursions the provinces 
which they periodically ravaged, it was necessary to main- 
tain a strong alliance among the Oriental Christians, and 
particularly between the Poles and the Russians. Rome was 
fully aware of all the advantages of such an alliance, or, to 
speak more correctly, she regarded it as necessary to the 
safety of Europe. During the last war between Russia and 
Poland, Pope Gregory XIII. had stopped Battory, in the 
midst of his triumphs, to remind him of the impiety of a war 
between the two powers which God seemed to have destined 
to be the bulwark of Christendom against the infidels.* At 
the same time, he had dispatched Father Possevin, a Jesuit, 
to Moscow, to offer Ivan the mediation of the Holy See. 
Father Possevin was a man of talent and of enlarged views. 
Not satisfied with having obtained from the Tsar, who stood 
in need of his good offices, a special act of tolerance in 
favour of the Catholics, he had laboured assiduously to 
prepare the means for the future extension of the influence of 
the Latin Church in Russia. Under his auspices, seminaries 
were established in Lithuania, at Wilna and Dorpat, to serve 
as advanced posts on the frontiers of the schismatical 
country. t He never ceased to intercede for the publication 
of religious books in the Russian language, and especially for 
an edition of the Bible, for there then existed only two trans- 

* u Peace being denied to the Muscovite, who would not give up the 
remainder of what he held in Livonia, he made use of the assistance of 
Pope Gregory XIII. to obtain it, under the promise that he would esta- 
blish the Catholic religion in his dominions." — Le Laboureur, Relation du 
Vogage de la Royne de Pologne, part ii. p. 180. This promise was never 
given. It is true that Ivan the Terrible received Father Possevin, the 
Pope's envoy, with every kind of attention, and that he had frequent 
conversation with him on various theological points. It is very probable 
that Father Possevin, who readily persuaded him to believe whatever he 
desired, fancied he had found a catechumen in the Tsar of Russia. See 
the account of these conferences in the Narrative of Father Possevin : 
A. Possevini Moscovia (Antwerp, 1687). 

f Letter from Father Possevin to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Esame 
Critico, p. 49. 



60 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



lations of the Holy Scriptures in the Slavic tongue — a Polish 
Bible, and another in the Czech or Bohemian dialect, * both 
of which were probably not very intelligible to the Russians. 
Whether we attribute these projects of conversion to 
religious zeal, or to the ambition with which the Society of 
Jesus is so generally charged, we cannot refuse to ac- 
knowledge the grandeur of their designs ; and it must be con- 
fessed that their primary results turned to the advantage of 
civilisation and of humanity. 

The Court of Rome, busied by cares of a more pressing 
nature, did not grant these schemes all the attention which 
they probably deserved. Father Fossevin left Russia ; and 
the establishments which he had founded in Lithuania, and 
which had already contributed powerfully to the propagation 
of Catholicism among the Greeks of that province, were 
directed by men who possessed neither his merit nor his 
ardent zeal for the faith. Nevertheless, his plans and 
instructions still subsisted, and it became impossible to tax 
them with temerity when a Tsarevitch was found request- 
ing admission within the pale of the Romish Church, and 
promising the conversion of his subjects. The Jesuits, who 
had succeeded Father Possevin, exulted triumphantly in so 
unexpected a success, and the nuncio, at their persuasion, 
volunteered to present Demetrius to the King of 
Poland. 

Sigismund, who was already prepossessed in his favour, 
consented to recognise him as the son of Ivan, but on con- 

* About the year 1563, Ivan the Terrible wished to procure the 
impression of a Russian Bible at Moscow ; but the undertaking failed, for 
the printer was obliged hastily to leave Russia soon after he had begun 
his work, as it would appear that he was persecuted by zealous devotees, 
who regarded his enterprise as an act of gross impiety. See the Esame 
Critico, note 17, p. 72. It would appear, moreover, that, at this period, 
among the Eastern Greeks, it was thought unlawful to translate the Holy 
Scriptures into a vulgar and non-hieratical dialect. I do not know 
whether, in Spain at the present day, it is lawful publicly to sell the 
translation of the Bible into the Castilian language. 



ARRANGEMENTS WITH THE POLES. 



61 



dition that he should first abjure the schism of the East, and 
pledge himself to introduce and propagate the Catholic 
faith in Russia. Mniszek, on his part, looked to his own 
private interests, and stipulated for his reward. In his 
equivocal position, Demetrius was careful not to discuss the 
conditions which were proposed to him, and consented un- 
hesitatingly to all that was required of him. On the 25th of 
May, 1604, at Sambor, he signed a promise of marriage to 
Marina Mniszek, by which he conferred upon her the towns 
of Novgorod and Pskof as a wedding gift. By the same 
act, he promised to pay to his father-in-law a million of 
Polish florins, * as soon as he should have ascended his 
throne. He further permitted Marina freely to profess the 
Catholic faith, and to have Latin churches, bishops and 
priests in her lordships of Novgorod and Pskof, until, ac- 
cording to his desire, he should have brought back the 
whole of Russia to the Catholic faith. A very singular 
clause which was inserted in this instrument bears testimony 
to the slight confidence with which Demetrius had then 
inspired his protectors. The promise of marriage was valid 
only at Moscow, and for a single year, unless, at the expira- 
tion of that time, Marina and her father should consent 
to renew it. f A few days afterwards, on the 12th of June, 
Demetrius subscribed another act by which he ceded the 
town of Smolensko and the whole of Severia to Mniszek and 
the King of Poland, who were to divide that province 

* About £160,000 sterling, 
f Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 159. The original, written in Polish and 
Russian, is signed in both languages by the hand of Demetrius. He 
assumes no other title but that of Tsarevitch, which is also inscribed 
upon the seal. After an oath that he will faithfully observe all the 
promises contained in the deed which he is about to sign, the Russian ver- 
sion terminates with this phrase, which does not occur in the Polish text : 
" and bring back all the Russians to the Latin faith." After all, this 
phrase may be a mere interpolation, for the same promise is mentioned a 
little before in both languages. 



62 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



equally between them. * When all these promises were 
signed, Demetrius repaired to Cracow to pronounce his abju- 
ration in the palace of the nuncio. If we may believe an eye- 
witness, whose good faith it is difficult to suspect, it took 
place in presence of a rather large number of persons ;f b ut 
evidently those who assisted at the ceremony had pledged 
themselves to keep it a secret, for the Tsarevitch still con- 
tinued to observe the outward rites of the Greek Church. 

It was, say some historians, by the advice of a Jesuit, 
that he demanded the hand of Marina, and in the hope that 
no one would question his royal birth if the proud Palatine 
of Sendomir accepted him as his son-in-law. It appears 
to me more probable that, attracted by the charms of Ma- 
rina, Demetrius felt for her a real affection. At all events, 
whether this resolution was spontaneous or the result of 
calculation, it was very imprudent, for the Russians then 
felt a kind of horror at the alliances of their sovereigns with 
foreign princesses, and the choice of a Polish wife could 
only wound their religious and national prejudices. Besides, 
Mniszek kept the promise of marriage quite secret, % and 
if it had been known, the clause which postponed its accom- 
plishment until the entrance of the pretender into Moscow, 

* Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 165. Severia comprised the most important 
part of Little Russia, that is, the present governments of Starodoub, 
Novgorod-Severski, and Tchernigof. 

f "Alia presentia di molti, tra questi mi trovai anche io;" Cilli, p. 11. 
Esame Critico, p. 18. See also the letter of Pope Paul V. to Demetrius, 
dated on the fourth of the ides of July, 1605, in which the following 
passages occur : " Nunc vero Catholicse religionis lumine illustratum in 

regale solium patris tui vult (Deus) restituere Multa quidem de 

singulari tua pietate ac religione tua, nobis renunciata sunt . . . quemad- 
modum celsitudo tua antea fecit, ita et in posterum Catholicam religionem, 
quam Ecclesia sancta Romana docet, integram inviolatamque custodierit." 
A. J. Tourghenief, Historica Russiae Monumenta, vol. ii. p. 73. 

£ On the 26th September, 1605, K"eri Giraldi wrote to the Grand Duke 
of Tuscany : " La opinion comun e che debba S. M. pigliar una sua figlia 
(di Mniszek) per moglie, sebbene non ci e certezza alcuna." — Esame 
Critico, p. 55. 



INTERVIEW WITH SIGISMUND. 



03 



was indicative of a distrust which was more likely to confirm 
than to destroy the suspicions entertained regarding his 
origin. 

Immediately after this abjuration, the new convert was 
presented to Sigismund by the nuncio at a solemn audience. 
Sigismund received him standing, with one hand resting on 
a table, according to the already classical attitude of 
sovereigns. Demetrius approached him in great emotion, 
and trembling from head to foot. * With head uncovered, 
after having kissed the hand which the king extended to 
him, he stated stammeringly, but in well chosen language, 
his birth, his rights and his misfortunes. He then besought 
the king to grant him protection and assistance to recover 
the inheritance of his ancestors. Although he was doubtless 
prepared for this harangue, Sigismund made no reply at 
the moment ; perhaps etiquette did not permit him to 
answer at once. A master of the ceremonies made a sign to 
Demetrius, who immediately withdrew into a neighbouring 
room, where the Palatine of Sendomir and a host of courtiers 
were awaiting him. The nuncio remained alone for a few 
minutes with the king, that it might appear as if they were 
deliberating together. Presently Demetrius was again con- 
ducted into the hall of audience. He advanced to the foot 
of the throne, bending his head and clasping his hands over 
his breast, according to the Muscovite method of salutation, 
but did not utter a word. Then Sigismund, with a gracious 
smile, said to him: a God keep thee, Demetrius, Prince of 
Muscovy! Thy birth is known to us, and attested by 
satisfactory evidence ; we assign thee a pension of forty 
thousand florins, and as our friend and our guest, we permit 
thee to accept the counsels and the services of our subjects/" 

At these words, the joy and emotion of Demetrius were 
so great that he could not utter a word in reply. He bowed 
profoundly and withdrew at once, leaving the court in some 

* " Seoperto et in piedi, tutto tremante ; " Cilli, p. 12. 



64 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



surprise at his want of assurance as well as at his humble 
and embarrassed manners, which were not such as might 
have been expected from the son of Ivan the Terrible. 
However, the fate of the exile had just been decided, and 
at that critical moment it was not astonishing that he should 
display some disturbance of countenance. The nuncio was 
obliged to excuse him to the king, and made great efforts to 
extol the merits of his protege. In reality, perhaps, Sigis- 
mund was not displeased at his want of assurance, but the 
impression which he retained of this interview was not 
favourable to Demetrius, and he did not conceal his 
intention to confine himself to granting him the succour 
due to his misfortunes, without aiding him personally by his 
arms. "As for the Palatine of Sendomir," he added, "let 
him consult his own interests. These are personal affairs, 
which concern himself alone." * 

The obscurity of this language did not deter Demetrius 
and Mniszek from carrying their plans into full effect. The 
pension which Sigismund had just granted was a perfectly 
illusory aid, for it was to be paid by Mniszek, who was the 
debtor of Sigismund to a considerable extent, and almost 
utterly insolvent; f but it was a great achievement that the 
King of Poland had recognised the exile as heir to the 
throne of Muscovy, and that he had permitted him to accept 
the counsels and services of the Poles. He thus authorised 
him to levy troops, and to prepare an expedition against 
Boris. The nuncio urged Demetrius to take the earliest 
advantage of the King's good will, and to cross the frontier 
before Sigismund could have time to retract his permission. 

Already, in fact, great agitation prevailed throughout the 
whole of Severia. The speedily arrival of the Tsarevitch 
was loudly proclaimed. Ever since the commencement of 

* Cilli, p. 12. Cilli was present at this scene. He does not say in 
what language Demetrius expressed himself ; probably in Polish, 
f Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 295. 



PERPLEXITY OF BORIS. 



65 



the year 1604, parties of Cossacks and Zaporogues had 
made their appearance in that province, and had begun 
hostilities against the agents of Boris. In the month of 
January, one of these bands, which had penetrated into 
White Russia, met Stephen Godounof, a relative of Boris, 
near Poutivle, and almost succeeded in carrying him off. 
The Cossacks either killed or took prisoners most of his 
retinue, and rifled his baggage. They afterwards released 
their prisoners, bidding them go and tell Boris that they 
intended shortly to bring the Tsarevitch Demetrius, their 
legitimate sovereign, in triumph to Moscow. * 

These Cossack incursions were not very alarming, for their 
undisciplined hordes were constantly in the habit of commit- 
ting such excesses ; but the new war-cry which had arisen 
among their steppes gave extraordinary importance to this 
assumption of arms. Boris, without losing a moment, sent 
troops to the frontier of Lithuania, superseded those 
governors of towns whose fidelity he suspected, and esta- 
blished in every direction posts of observation which he 
entrusted to his most faithful officers. At the same time, he 
hastened to write to Sigismund to complain of the reception 
given to an impostor, in contempt of the solemn truces 
which both nations had sworn to observe, f 

Probably Boris knew no more than any one else who this 
pretender could be, who seemed as though he had fallen 
from the clouds, and who, in a few months, had surrounded 
himself by a formidable party. His attention was divided 
between the stranger in whose honour the Polish nobles 
were giving such splendid festivals, and the fugitive monk 
whose preachings were exciting the Cossacks to insurrection. 
As for the latter, he was aware of his name: he was called 
Gregory, or Grishka, Otrepief. He was greatly despised 
by the Russian clergy for his disorderly conduct. An 
impudent drunkard and debauchee, he was just such a 



Baer, p. 36= 



f Peyeiie, p. 78. 



06 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



monk as a horde of Zaporogues might have chosen for their 
chaplain. His father, a captain of Strelitz, had been killed 
at Moscow in a pot-house quarrel: and finally, one of his 
uncles, Smirnoi' Otrepief, resided at the Court of the Tsar, 
in what capacity it is unknown, but enjoying a remarkable 
amount of intimacy with the sovereign. * 

It was necessary irretrievably to ruin the pretended 
Demetrius in the opinion of the people, who were disposed 
to welcome him as a liberator : and Boris imagined that he 
would succeed in this by identifying him with this apostate 
monk whom everybody despised. Accordingly, his envoys 
at the court of Sigismund received instructions to reclaim 
the impostor as a fugitive priest ; and Smirnoi, the uncle of 
Gregory Otrepief, was attached to the embassy, apparently 
in order that he might more surely unmask his nephew. 
It must be observed, however, that at this moment Deme- 
trius was on the frontier of Lithuania, which rendered a 
confrontation somewhat difficult. The demand for his ex- 
tradition was supported by an excommunication fulminated 
by the Patriarch against the false Demetrius, whom he 
designated as an apostate monk, a rebel and a magician, 
convicted of having desired to introduce the Latin heresy 
into Russia, and to build Catholic Churches in the orthodox 
country.-J- 

The identity of the false Demetrius with the monk Otre- 
pief has been adopted as an unquestionable fact by most 
modern historians; but, among contemporary writers, it 
does not appear to have obtained the slightest credence, 
even from those who did not doubt that the man was an 
impostor. In fact, it rests only upon the assertion of Boris, 
which, in my opinion, will not bear a serious examination. 
The following narrative, which appears to have emanated 
from the chancery of the Tsar, deserves quotation, as it 

* Gos. Gramoty, examination of Khroustchof, vol. ii. p. 177. 
f Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 191. 



GREGORY OTREPIEF. 



67 



makes us acquainted with the antecedents of the false 
Demetrius, according to the opinion which the Court of 
Moscow was desirous to accredit. It will at once be seen 
that the description cannot apply to the person who stated 
that he was the son of Ivan. 

" The Tsar has been informed that, in Lithuania, a cer- 
tain scoundrel has called himself by the name of the Tsare- 
vitch Demetrius, Prince of Ooglitch, son of Ivan. The 
said scoundrel is no other than a certain unfrocked monk, 
named Grishka Otrepief, son of Bogdan Otrepief, captain 
of Strelitz. After having received the tonsure in the mo- 
nastery of Tchoudof, in the year 7711 (1603), he crossed 
the frontier, went into Lithuania, and entered the monastery 
of Petchera in company with another monk, named Michael 
Povadin. There, by a diabolical trick, he pretended to be 
ill ; and entreating the abbot to shrive him, he confessed to 
him that he was Demetrius of Ooglitch, the son of Tsar 
Ivan, and that he had assumed the dress of a monk in order 
to conceal himself from the Tsar Boris, but that he had not 
taken the vows. Then he besought the abbot to publish 
his confession in case of his death. After which, he rose up, 
spoke, and felt better. The abbot, deceived by this im- 
postor, wrote to the King of Poland and to the Senators ; 
upon which the apostate, throwing off his frock, betook him- 
self to Sendomir, and openly assumed the name of the 
Tsarevitch ; and in the whole of Severia, as well as in the 
towns of Poland, people are found who put faith in this 
imposture." * 

This document is important, inasmuch as it fixes the date 
of the arrival in Lithuania of the monk Otrepief, or rather 
that of his apostasy ; for it is scarcely probable that he would 
have come to Petchera, in order to proceed from thence to 
the banks of the Don. It was in 1603 that he fled; and 
during the same year the false Demetrius made himself 



* Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 163. 



68 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



known to Prince Adam Wiszniowiecki. Until then, it is 
said, Otrepief had wandered from convent to convent in the 
remoter districts of Russia, or else he had resided at Mos- 
cow.* Now, what likelihood is there that a monk would 
have learned, under such circumstances, to speak Polish 
with as much facility as his mother-tongue? In what mo- 
nastery could he have become the excellent horseman, and 
the skilful fencer, whom we find in Poland ? And how can 
we explain the presence of a monk of the name of Gregory 
Otrepief among the Cossacks of the Don and the Dnieper, 
when, at the same time, the real Otrepief, under the name 
of Demetrius, was asserting his pretensions at Sambor, or at 
Cracow. •(" 

However, neither the proclamations of Boris nor the en- 
cyclical letters of the Patriarch were able to disabuse the 
multitude. A large number of Russian gentlemen, who 
were either exiled or suspected by the government, several 
insolvent debtors, and those men who are always ready to 
plunge into revolutions, because, as the prophet says, they 
have " bitterness in their heart," had already collected in 
Lithuania, and had formed a kind of Court around Deme- 
trius, which was presently to become an army. These 
refugees were joined by many Polish noblemen, attracted, 
some by a love of adventure, and others by the hope of 
the great rewards which Mniszek promised his country- 
men. He himself had pledged his property and jewels, and 
brought in his train that host of clients who, at that period, 
surrounded a great Polish noble. He busied himself with 
the greatest activity about all the preparations for an ex- 
pedition, enrolled soldiers, and purchased arms and muni- 
tions of war. All the manifestos of Boris were answered 
immediately by counter-manifestos. Meanwhile, the minis- 
ters of Sigismund always had plausible replies to the 



* Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 160. f I shall recur to this point by and by. 



CAPTURE OF KHROUSTCHOF. 



69 



representations of the Muscovite ambassadors. Sometimes 
the king pretended ignorance of the armaments of Deme- 
trius; sometimes he answered, " that the Polish nobles were 
absolute masters of their actions ; that he could not prevent 
them from taking interest in an unfortunate foreigner; and 
that the most he could do was to take care that they did no- 
thing to contravene existing treaties."* As for Smirnoi 
Otrepief, he felt no desire to present himslf before Demetrius 
in the midst of his camp on the borders of Lithuania. 

Things were in this state, when a party of Cossacks cap- 
tured a Russian gentleman named Khroustchof, a familiar 
agent of Boris, it was said, who had been dispatched by 
him to the hordes of the Don, to counteract the effect of the 
harangues of the fugitive monk. The Cossacks immediately 
sent him to Demetrius, loaded with chains, as a prisoner of 
importance. The Tsarevitch received him with clemency, 
ordered his chains to be taken off, and wished to interrogate 
him himself. When brought into his presence, Khroust- 
chof fell with his face to the ground, exclaiming that he saw 
before him the living portrait of the late Tsar Ivan, and 
with abundant tears he called Demetrius his master and 
his legitimate sovereign. " Pardon ! " he cried, " I have 
sinned only through ignorance. 1 ' Then he eagerly answered 
the questions which were put to him, while a secretary took 
notes of all his declarations, probably in order to communi- 
cate them to the King of Poland. The information which 
he gave of the position of Russia was well calculated to en- 
courage the hopes of Demetrius. It is true, that Boris was 
collecting troops on all sides, employing promises and threats 
in order to obtain soldiers ; and compelling the nobility, and 
even the clergy, to send him their peasants, in order to swell 

* Stan. Lubienski, Episc. Plocensis, Opera Historica, pp. 29, 30. — 
" Cseterum in tanta Nobilitatis Polonse libertate, prohiberi non potuisse ne 
aliqui privatim illi studerent ; si qui tamen modum ea in re excesserint, 
aut aliquid contra pacta admiserint, daturos ex formula foederis pcenas." 




70 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



the ranks of his army : * but he was obeyed with great un- 
willingness ; and the Boyards, who held commands on the 
frontiers of the Crimea, had openly expressed their satisfac- 
tion that they would not have to draw their swords against 
their legitimate sovereign. It was also rumoured, that 
Boris, alarmed at the disposition of the people and of the 
soldiers, had sent his treasures to Astracan, from whence 
he intended to convey them into Persia. For some time, it 
had been observed that he was losing his former activity ; 
he walked with difficulty, and his vital forces seemed nearly 
exhausted. Whilst it was proclaimed, by his order, that 
the Tsarevitch was an impostor, he had summoned to 
Moscow, from the convent to which he had banished her, 
the Tsarina-nun, the widow of Ivan, and had interrogated 
her for a long while, in presence of the Patriarch alone. 
No one doubted that she was in correspondence with her son. 
What she had said no one knew, but Boris did not dare 
to reveal it, and had ordered that she should be watched 
with redoubled strictness. Already, at Moscow even, all 
believed that the Tsarevitch was still alive. Two noblemen 
had been put to death for having drunk his health : they 
were denounced by the domestics who were serving them. 

At the same time the sister of Boris, Irene, widow of 
Feodor, had died almost suddenly in the convent which she 
had chosen as her retreat, and the people believed that she 
had been poisoned by her brother, whose usurpation she 
detested, and whom she would have exhorted to restore the 
crown to the legitimate prince. As for the report spread 
by Boris that a certain monk, named Otrepief, had passed 
himself off as the Tsarevitch, no one at Moscow believed in 
it. If Gregory Otrepief, it was said, had possessed so much 

* Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 164. Boris remarks in his proclamation that 
formerly, when the country was in danger, the ecclesiastics themselves had 
taken arms, but that on this occasion he would be content with the 
contingents of armed serfs which they would send him. 



DEMETRIUS ENTERS RUSSIA. 



71 



audacity, the Tsar would not have failed to exterminate his 
entire family : whereas, his uncle Smirnoi was in great 
favour.* To those who were acquainted with the suspicious 
and vindictive character of Boris, this was an unanswerable 
argument. 

Such were the news given by the prisoner, perhaps some- 
what chargeable with exaggeration, but which were never- 
theless confirmed by new reports which arrived from all 
sides. If Demetrius had been better provided with funds, 
he would doubtless have crossed the frontier at once ; but 
in spite of all the efforts of Mniszek and himself, it was not 
until the end of October that he found himself strong enough 
to enter Russia.f He was then attended by about eleven 
hundred Polish lances 3 J and five hundred foot soldiers of 
the same nation, besides some thousands of Russian exiles 
and deserters. On the Muscovite territory a body of three 
or four thousand Don Cossacks and Zaporogues awaited 
him. At the head of this little troop he advanced resolutely 
against his enemy, who had already assembled before 
Moscow an army of more than a hundred thousand men. 

* Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 173 ; Examination of Khroustchof, Sept. 3, 
1604. This argument, which exactly describes the manners of the time, 
is supplied by Khroustchof himself. 

+ It is possible that Demetrius may have wished to wait until the time 
of snow, which in the North is more favourable for military expeditions 
than the autumn, which is generally rainy. 

$ That is, more than 3000 cavalry. Every Polish gentleman was 
attended by several mounted servants. 



72 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



CHAPTER V. 



TRIUMPHANT PROGRESS OF DEMETRIUS THROUGH SEVERIA. — SIEGE OF NOV- 
GOROD. — BATTLE OF NOVGOROD AND VICTORY OF DEMETRIUS. — RECALL 
OF THE POLES. — BATTLE OF DOBRYNITCHI AND DEFEAT OF DEMETRIUS. — 
RETREAT TO POUTIVLE. — PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS.— DEATH OF BORIS. 

The little army of Demetrius, which had been concentrated 
in the Palatinate of Kiovia, passed the Dnieper above Kief 
on the 23rd of October, 1604, and marched towards the 
North.* Its progress was slow, for it did not enter the 
Russian territory until the 31st, when it appeared before 
Moravsk, a small fortified town in the present government 
of Tchernigof, on the extreme borders of the frontier. As 
soon as the inhabitants saw the lances of the Cossack van- 
guard glittering in the sun, they opened their gates, and has- 
tened to present Demetrius with an offering of bread and salt, 
the symbol of submission .f The voivodes, or governors of 
Boris, had shown a disposition to resist, but the people had 
bound them hand and foot, and brought them in triumph to 
the Tsarevitch. Demetrius treated them humanely. He 
displayed great affability, was lavish of his promises, and 
appeared full of confidence in the justice of his cause, and 
the success of his enterprise. Four days afterwards, 

* Gos. Gramoty, Journal of Mniszek, vol. ii. p. 168. Zolkiewski 
MSS., p. 3. 

+ The same ceremonial is observed at the present day not only when 
the Emperor enters a town, but also when a nobleman pays a visit to a 
village on his estate. 



INVASION OF SEVERIA. 



73 



Tchernigof and several other towns surrendered in the 
same manner, without striking a blow. At every halting- 
place, Demetrius was met by deputations which had hastened 
to congratulate him, and to deliver up to him the governors 
of Boris, loaded with chains. Deserters and adventurers 
arrived in small troops. The point of attack, which was 
remote from the centre of the empire, had been well chosen. 
The province of Severia, which was filled with Cossacks, 
and had long been acted upon by the emissaries of Demetrius, 
appeared disposed to welcome him as a liberator.* 

It was only at the gates of Novgorod-Severski that the 
invaders perceived that Boris still reigned. At the approach 
of the pretender, the governor Peter Basmanof, who had 
been sent thither not long before with a picked troop of six 
hundred Strelitz, set fire to the lower town, and withdrew 
into the citadel. On being summoned to surrender, he 
haughtily replied that he had sworn to be faithful to Tsar 
Boris, and that he recognised no other sovereign. i( The 
man who sends you," he said to the Polish herald, " is a 
miserable impostor, and empalement is in store for him and 
his accomplices. Hasten to withdraw, if you care for your 
life." t The arrival of the Tsarevitch with all his forces, 
repeated summonses to yield, and attempts at bribery, failed 
to induce Basmanof to change his tone. After having 
allowed him forty-eight hours for reflection, an assault was 
tried, which he vigorously repulsed. Demetrius had no 
cannon of sufficient calibre to destroy the palisades which 
formed the principal defence of Novgorod. His Polish 
engineers spent three weeks in preparing incendiary materials 
and artifices for setting fire to these wooden entrenchments ; 
but on the night fixed for the expedition, the Strelitz, 

* Baer, p. 45 ; Peyerle, p. 6 ; Journal of Mniszek. The shortest route 
would have been to proceed from Wilna in the direction of Soiolensko, 
but this way would have removed him from the Cossacks, his surest allies. 

*r Peyerle, p. 9. 

E 



74 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



informed of the plan by deserters, stood on their guard, 
and received the assailants with murderous volleys, which 
soon compelled them to abandon their project. This succes- 
sion of defeats before a miserable wooden fort, spread dis- 
couragement among the Poles and Russians of the little 
besieging army. Already provisions and ammunition were 
becoming scarce, and it was reported that the great army of 
Boris was marching to the relief of Novgorod. Demetrius 
alone did not share in the general despondency, and was 
striving to restore the courage and hopefulness of his troops, 
when an unexpected success furnished him with new 
resources. His scouts captured a convoy of eighty thousand 
ducats, which Boris was sending to his army ; or, according 
to an equally probable account, the treasurer, Massalski, 
voluntarily betook himself with the money to the camp of 
Demetrius.* At the same time, Poutivle, one of the prin- 
cipal towns of Severia, declared in his favour. In less than 
three days, Rylsk, Sievsk, Voroneje, and about forty other 
towns or fortresses followed this example/]* The opportune 
defection of Poutivle was due to the exertions of the monk 
Otrepief, who, for several months, had been travelling through 
Severia, where his eloquence appears to have exercised a 
powerful influence over the multitude. 

At Poutivle, this monk and the pretender met each other. 
Less than a year before, they had parted, it was said, on 
the frontier of Lithuania, one to rouse the Cossacks to revolt, 
and the other to gain over the Polish nobility. J Each had 
succeeded in his task, each might attribute the issue to his 
own exertions, and claim the merit for himself alone. What 
their relations had been in former times, no one knew. But 

* Compare Nikon, p. 61 ; Petreius, p. 300 ; Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 200. 
Memcewicz, vol. iv. p. 253, relates that the money was concealed in barrels 
of honey, and that Demetrius sent part of it into Poland to Prince 
WiszniowieckL in order to obtain fresh recruits. 

t Peyerle, p. 11 ; Baer, p. 45. J Margeret, p. 156. 



SIEGE OF NOVGOROD. 



75 



Demetrius had already begun to consider himself a sovereign 
in earnest. Otrepief, whether he was his dupe or not, 
expected to find in him a companion, but, instead of this, he 
was met by a master. His low habits, his drunken propen- 
sities, and his insolence disgusted Demetrius, who, far from 
rewarding his services, seems to have endeavoured to get rid 
of him. From this time the monk ceases to occupy a 
place in history. A few months afterwards, we hear that 
he had been banished to Jaroslavl, his native place ; and 
then he relapses into perfect obscurity.* 

Meanwhile, Demetrius was fruitlessly expending his bullets 
against the palisades of Novgorod. At length, Basmanof 
sent to demand a truce for fifteen days. He expected, he 
said, to receive news from Moscow, and if no succour arrived 
before the expiration of the time fixed, he promised to sur- 
render the place, f In the position in which the pretender 
found himself, this proposal could not be rejected, as it fur- 
nished him with the means of extricating himself with honour 
from an enterprise in which he had somewhat rashly engaged. 
Besides, he had received intelligence of the approach of the 
great Muscovite army, and according to the reports of his 
scouts, he would soon have more than a hundred thousand men 
to deal with. Notwithstanding the inferiority of his numbers, 
the Tsarevitch resolved to await his enemies and to try the 
fortune of battle, as he felt convinced that a single step 
backwards would be followed by general desertion. The 
Poles, wearied by the length of the siege, promised them- 
selves better success on the open field, and, moreover, most 
of the spies affirmed that this immense army was more dis- 
posed to pass over to the standards of the Tsarevitch than 
to defend the cause of Boris. 

In fact, the Muscovite generals, aware of the anxiety of 
their master, distrustful of the fidelity of their soldiers, and, 
moreover, uncertain of the character and resources of the 



* Margeret, p. 156. 



+ Peyerle, p. 13. 



76 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



man with whom they were about to engage in conflict, 
advanced with excessive slowness, and with precautions 
which were less indicative of prudence than of timidity.* 
They remained during five days encamped at a distance of 
four leagues from Novgorod, and employed themselves 
rather in throwing up entrenchments among the woods than 
in making preparations for an attack. With the exception 
of the Strelitz and a few companies of German infantry, 
the army of Boris was nothing better than an undisciplined 
rabble. Its numerous cavalry, badly mounted, and armed 
with hows and arrows,f were able neither to manoeuvre nor 
to charge. The soldiers were conscious of their military 
inferiority ; and having been, for the most part, constrained 
by the lash to take arms,!; they manifested extreme repug- 
nance to march against a man who was, in their eyes, if not 
their legitimate sovereign, at least the enemy of Boris, whom 
they detested. 

On the 26th of December, 1604, an attempt of the Mus- 
covites to throw reinforcements into Novgorod, was hotly 
repulsed. Prince Feodor Mstislavski, the commander of the 
army of Boris, wrote to Mniszek, as the general of the 
Polish troops, to summon him immediately to withdraw from 
the Russian territory, which had been invaded in contempt 
of the truce, and to abandon the cause of an impostor, who 
had rebelled against a sovereign in alliance with the King 
of Poland. As might have been expected, this message pro- 
duced no effect. § On the 28th, the Muscovites began to 
advance, but halted as soon as they saw the enemy's scouts 
ready to engage in a skirmish. A few Russian gentlemen 

* Gos. Gramoty, Journal of Mniszek, vol. ii. p. 171. 
t Herberstain, Rerum Muscovitarum Commentarii, p. 49. 
+ 11 They lashed their shoulders so thoroughly that a sound place could 
not have been found on their backs large enough to lay a needle on." 
Baer, p. 46. 

§ Gos. Gramoty, Journal of Mniszek, vol. ii. p. 171. 



BATTLE OF NOVGOROD. 



77 



passed over to the camp of Demetrius. He expected a more 
general defection, but all the news brought to him regarding 
the position of the hostile army was of a very encouraging 
nature. Notwithstanding the hesitations of the Muscovite 
generals, the two armies were now so near that a general 
action was inevitable. It took place on the 31st of 
December. 

The pretender had about fifteen thousand men, Cossacks, 
Russians and Poles ; Prince Mstislavski more than forty 
thousand.* At break of day, Demetrius left his camp and 
arrayed his troops in order of battle on an open plain, 
with a boldness which, if it did not denote complete igno- 
rance of the art of war, seemed to indicate that he felt 
positively certain of victory. His principal strength con- 
sisted in six or seven hundred Polish cavalry, called Hussars 
or Towarzysz, that is to say, companions. They were a 
corps of gentlemen, mounted on horses of large size, covered 
with complete armour, and armed with long lances which 
they managed with singular dexterity. f Each of them was 
attended by a certain number of servants, almost as well 
armed as their masters, and called Pocholiki, el word which 
several French writers of the seventeenth century have 
changed into that of Pacolets. In the hour of battle, the 
hussars formed the first rank, destined to break the enemy's 
lines. Their accoutrements, a strange mixture of Oriental 
and European fashions, would appear very extraordinary to 
the cavalry of the present day. Cloaks formed of the skins 
of wild beasts floated over their shoulders ; their shabracks 
glistened with gold and silver, and frequently with pearls 
and precious stones. At the back of their cuirasses, 
they wore large wings of eagles or vultures, which rose 
far above their heads. Other wings were fixed upon their 
helmets, and sometimes even fastened to their saddles ; so 



* Margeret, p, 114. 



f Maskiewicz, p. 42. 



78 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



that it required no slight skill to ride on horseback with 
such an equipment.* 

Demetrius, at the head of this chosen troop and a body of 
Russian gentlemen, harangued his soldiers, and exhorted 
them to fight bravely. His countenance, radiant with joy, 
beamed with warlike enthusiasm. a O my God ! " he 
exclaimed aloud, "if my cause is unjust, let thine anger fall 
upon me alone ! But thou knowest that my right is good, 
and thou wilt lend my arm an invincible force/' f At these 
words, the Polish hussars, dashing with the rapidity of 
lightning upon the right wing of the Russians, threw it into 
confusion with the first charge, and drove it back upon the 
centre. Disorder spread through the whole of the Muscovite 
army ; the soldiers disbanded, threw down their arms, and 
cried : " The Tsarevitch ! the Tsarevitch ! " Their horses, 
says a Russian annalist, frightened by the sight of the Poles 
dressed in bear-skin pelisses, with the hair outwards, 
refused to advance against what seemed to them an army of 
wild beasts.J 

In vain did Prince Mstislavski, more brave as a soldier 
than skilful as a captain, strive to rally his terrified cavalry ; 
falling for a moment into the midst of the Poles, he received 
fifteen sabre cuts, was thrown from his horse, and would 
have been taken prisoner, if a dozen arquebusiers had not 
rescued him, and carried him bleeding and senseless from 
the field of battle. The rout would have been complete, 
and the Muscovite army entirely dispersed, if the infantry 
of the left wing had not checked the impetuosity of the 
Polish cavalry. At the same moment, Basmanof issued 
from Novgorod, and with the assistance of a few German 
companies under the command of a Swede named Lorenz 

* It is thus that the Polish warriors are represented in engravings of 
the 17th century. On some of these coats of armour the wings are formed 
of bronze or tin. The hussars of Sobieski still continued to wear wings. 

f Peyerle, p. 13. De Thou, lib. cxxxv. 

X Margeret, p. 113. Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 214. 



VICTORY OF DEMETRIUS. 



79 



Biugge, fell upon the camp of Demetrius, and set it on fire. 
It was necessary to abandon the pursuit of the Russian 
army in order to repulse this new attack ; and the generals 
of Boris were thus enabled to effect a retreat to their 
entrenchments in the woods.* 

The battle of Novgorod was doubtless glorious, but it 
was a barren victory. The enemy had left the field of 
battle covered with four thousand dead bodies— a loss easily 
repaired. A small number of prisoners had been taken by 
the Cossacks, but hardly any deserters. Demetrius had 
hoped, and this is the explanation of his audacity, that 
nearly all the Muscovite army would come over to his 
standard. Now, however, he had seen it fly before him, 
terrified but not submissive. At a few miles from Novgorod, 
another and more numerous army, arriving from Moscow, 
was about to join the fugitives, and might in a few days 
resume the offensive. It is true that, on the day following 
the victory, a body of twelve thousand Zaporogues, with 
fourteen pieces of artillery, had joined the conqueror ; but 
it was thought that they might have come up with greater 
diligence, and their fidelity seemed somewhat open to 
suspicion.! On the other hand, although greatly elated by 
the victory, all the honour of which they appropriated to 
themselves, the Poles were beginning to remark the small 
amount of enthusiasm which the Russians displayed for 
their legitimate sovereign ; and the difficulties of their enter- 
prise appeared to them for the first time in all their reality. 
Moreover, they complained that Demetrius had kept his 
promises very badly. The money brought by Massalski 
had been distributed mostly among the Cossacks and 
Severians ; and the hussars murmured at seeing that the 
better part of the booty was not bestowed on those who had 
held the post of honour in the moment of conflict.]: While 



* Margeret, p. 113; Peyerle, p. 15 ; Baer, p. 47 ; Petre'ms, p. 299. 
t Peyerle, p. 16. t Petre'ms, p. 300. 



80 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



in this state of mind, they received a message from Sigis- 
mund, enjoining them to return home under penalty of 
confiscation of their property. This order had doubtless 
been extorted from the King of Poland by the entreaties or 
threats of the envoys of Boris. There is no question that 
it would have been delayed if the victory of Novgorod had 
been known at the Court of Cracow, but the inconceivable 
protraction of the siege of a paltry wooden fort, and the 
announcement of the immense preparations of the Tsar, had 
led him to despair of the cause of the pretender. Finally, 
at the same period, one of those revolts authorised by the 
laws of Poland under the name of Confederations,* had 
made Sigismund feel the need of his faithful palatines, and 
this motive alone was sufficient to induce him to recall 
Mniszek and his companions. 

Most of the Poles resolved to obey the commands of their 
sovereign. All the palatines and the principal gentlemen, 
including Mniszek himself and his relations, abandoned De- 
metrius. In order to colour their retreat, they promised to 
return quickly with larger reinforcements. Meanwhile, they 
intended to use all their efforts to compel Sigismund and the 
republic to declare war against Boris. A hundred hussars 
only, who cared little to obey the orders of their king, re- 
mained with the Tsarevitch, and formed him a kind of 
body-guard. The rest started for Poland fourteen days 
after the battle of Novgorod ; f but, either ashamed of 
having deserted their adopted leader in the moment of 
danger, or in the hope of making their fortune in Russia, 
nearly four hundred of them returned once more, and re- 
joined Demetrius just as he was again preparing to give 
battle to the Muscovite army. J 

* These confederations, Rokosz, were insurrections of the army of the 
Crown or of the Lithuanian army, generally excited by the refusal of 
subsidies which had been demanded. Maskiewicz gives an interesting 
account of one of these confederations in which he took part. 

t Gos. Gramoty, Journal of Mniszek, vol. ii. p. 172. Peyerle, p. 16. 

+ Peyerle, p. 17. 



AL A.RM OF BORIS. 



81 



Though destitute of money and of almost all kinds of 
resources, and obliged to reckon with his soldiers as well as 
with his captains, the pretender had never ceased to direct 
his views towards Moscow and the throne of the Tsars. His 
assurance never gave way, and he impassibly awaited the 
attack of an immense army, twice as numerous as that with 
which he had already fought. He coldly calculated his 
chances. There could now be no further question about 
raising the siege of Novgorod. To take refuge in one of the 
fortified towns which had just declared in his favour, ap- 
peared to him more dangerous than to risk a second battle. 
A desperate blow might succeed, and the second army of 
Boris might perhaps prove less faithful than the first. 
Finally, he did not conceal from himself that a pretender 
must act, and that he is lost as soon as he appears to doubt 
his good fortune. Determined to risk all, he broke up his 
camp, and, after having spent a few days at Sievsk to refresh 
his troops, he again took the field at the head of less than 
twenty thousand men, most of whom were Cossacks or 
inhabitants of Severia. 

Boris had only learned the defeat of his army before 
Novgorod by public rumour ; for Prince Mstislavski was 
utterly unable either to write or to dictate, and not one of 
the other generals had ventured to undertake to announce 
such unsatisfactory intelligence. It is thus that despots are 
always served by their agents.* The anger of the Tsar 
was equalled only by his anxiety. Contrary to his usual cus- 
tom, he merely reprimanded his Boyards, but did not punish 
any one of them ; for he felt that he was, as it were, in their 
hands, and rigorous proceedings on his part might perhaps 
have led to a general defection. He sent his own physician 
to Prince Mstislavski, who, at all events, had acted like a 
brave soldier, and assured him of his interest and gratitude. 

* St. Simon relates a precisely similar occurrence on the occasion of the 
battle of Oudenarde. 

e 3 



82 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



Basmanof, the only one of his officers who had maintained 
the honour of his arms, was named a Boyard of the Council, 
loaded with presents, and summoned to Moscow, as if to 
defend the capital in the event of another defeat. Boris 
appointed Prince Basil Schuisky to the command of the new 
army which was marching against the impostor. In the 
extreme danger in which he was placed, the Tsar found 
himself obliged to set aside his hatred and suspicions, and 
to employ a man who was considered able, and whose illus- 
trious name would not fail to ensure the obedience of his 
other generals. 

Schuisky was not a man of war, and, in this respect, he 
did himself justice. His march was even more prudent, 
and his conduct even more timid, than that of his prede- 
cessor. Although he had under his command nearly eighty 
thousand men, and abundance of artillery, he approached 
Sievsk with the most extraordinary precaution, intrenching 
himself every evening within wooden fences, and surround* 
ing his camp with his baggage- wagons, as with a rampart. 
The scouts of Demetrius discovered him thus strongly 
fortified, in the midst of the woods, near the village of 
Dobrynitchi, now Dobroun, on the Sieva, a few miles dis- 
tant from Sievsk."* 

After three days of inactivity, Schuisky ventured at length 
to engage in a slight skirmish, which the night soon termi- 
nated. It was easy to perceive that the Muscovites were 
badly served by their spies, and that they were completely 
ignorant of the real strength of their adversaries. The 
boldness of the hussars and Cossacks terrified the unwar- 
like levies of Boris, and thousands of cavalry fled in alarm 
to their camp at sight of a Polish foraging-party. In the 
last engagement the Russians had lost more than two hun- 
dred men, but they had captured one Pole. This man, 
says a chronicler, was drunk, and to all the questions of 

* P eyerie, p. 17. 



BATTLE OF DOBRYNITCHI. 



b'6 



the Muscovite generals he merely answered by asking for 
beer and brandy. In vain was he flogged unmercifully to 
make him speak ; he died beneath the lash, " calling out for 
drink." Schuisky had him hanged to a pine-tree in the 
midst of the camp, as if to prove to the Russians that the 
Poles were not immortal. This miserable drunkard, how- 
ever, proved that they were determined soldiers."* 

After protracted deliberations, the generals of Boris, 
urged by letters from their master, and encouraged by the 
presence of several foreign captains, determined to give 
battle; and on the 20th of January, 1605, they arrayed 
their immense army in the plain of Dobrynitchi. Deme- 
trius did not allow them the honour of the first attack. He 
divided his troops into three bodies. His infantry, com- 
posed of four thousand Cossacks, occupied an eminence 
with his artillery. Eight thousand mounted Zaporogues 
formed his main body. Demetrius himself, with four hun- 
dred Polish hussars and two thousand Russian cavalry, took 
his position in the vanguard. As soon as the Russians, 
issuing from the woods, were beginning to form in line, he 
charged at full gallop on their centre. At this movement, the 
Russian cavalry gave way, either through fear of the on- 
slaught, or in order to unmask their artillery and infantry, 
which immediately fired a general volley. Fourteen cannon 
and sixteen thousand arquebusiers, all firing at once with 
the precipitation of fear, killed only ten or twelve men ; at 
the same moment, as the smoke was rapidly dispelled by the 
wind, the Muscovites saw the lances of the hussars glitter- 
ing before their eyes. The vanguard of Demetrius, by 
its first onslaught, threw the infantry into confusion, 
sabred the cannoniers, and made an immense opening in 
the midst of the enemy's lines. If, at that moment, the 
Zaporogues had charged with the same vigour, there is 
every reason to believe that Demetrius would have gained 



* Petre'ius, p. 301. 



84 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



a complete victory. But those Cossacks remained mo- 
tionless, and presently rode off without engaging in the 
battle. Meanwhile, two companies of foreign infantry, 
commanded by a Livonian named Walter de Rosen, and a 
Frenchman named Margeret, checked the impetuous charge 
of Demetrius, and gave the Muscovites time to rally, and 
to return to the fight. The Germans, who composed the 
majority of the auxiliaries of Boris, shouted in their native 
language, " Hilf Gott !" (God help us!) This was their 
war-cry, and it at once became the rallying-cry of the 
Russians, who repeated it without understanding its mean- 
ing. After having performed prodigies of valour, Deme- 
trius, whose horse was wounded, turned bridle and fled, hotly 
pursued. Fortunately, his Cossack infantry momentarily 
arrested the progress of the conquerors; as for himself, 
without caring to renew a conflict which had become utterly 
desperate, he hastened onwards to Sievsk, with the remnant 
of his hussars. The Cossack infantry, surrounded by the 
entire Muscovite army, were cut to pieces, to the last man, 
in defence of their guns.'' 

If Demetrius was betrayed by the Zaporogues, who had 
been bought, it is said, by the gold of Boris, Boris himself 
was badly served by his generals, who, instead of following 
up their success, halted their troops on the field of battle, 
and openly favoured the escape of the pretender. " Let 
carnage cease, and a retreat be sounded," they said ; " the 
fowl is in the pot/'' t Nothing, however, had been done so 

* Baer, p. 48; Peyerle, p. 20; Margeret, p. 116; Petrei'us, p. 302. 

t The expression employed by Petrei'us, who doubtless borrowed it 
from Baer, who translated it from the Eussian, is in German : " Sie hatten 
schon den rechten Hahn gefangen ; " Petre'ius, p. 302. M. Oustrialof has 
thus retranslated it into Russian : " Popalsia Icour vo shtshi, — the fowl has 
fallen into the cabbage soup." Schuisky and the Russian commanders 
wished to make the soldiers believe that Demetrius was taken, as it was to 
their interest not to gain Boris a complete victory. See Baer, p. 48 ; and 
note 52, p. 245. 



FLIGHT OF DEMETRIUS. 



85 



long as Demetrius still remained alive. He had lost four 
thousand men, all his artillery, and all his baggage, but 
he still retained the prestige of his name, and that was enough 
to rekindle the war. 

He merely passed through Sievsk, vvhick could not offer 
any serious resistance, and rode thirty miles further on, to 
Rylsk. From thence he proceeded to Poutivle, still accom- 
panied by his Poles, for he could no longer trust the Zapo- 
rogues. Ere long, however, those traitors, who had closely 
followed on his track, presented themselves at the gates 
of Poutivle, but instead of obtaining admission, they were 
received by volleys of artillery. They then dispersed, and 
returned to their habitual encampments on the banks of the 
Dnieper.* 

Whilst Demetrius was actively engaged in putting 
Poutivle in a state of defence ; whilst he was endeavour- 
ing to restore the courage of his adherents, and seeking 
to obtain new soldiers in every direction ; the Muscovite 
generals were intent merely in obtaining a reward for their 
victory. The slowness of their movements made it seem as 
though they were desirous to render the war eternal, and 
doubtless such was their intention, as they were persuaded 
that, so long as it lasted, Boris would have to treat them 
with every consideration. Immediately after the victory of 
Dobrynitchi, Schuisky had dismissed a portion of his troops, 
who, he said, could no longer keep the field for want of 
provisions. In fact, at this period, the Russians knew 
nothing at all about the victualling and commissariat of an 
army. Every soldier provided for his subsistence by his 
own industry.-)- Although greatly reduced in numbers, the 
Russian army, if well commanded, would have still sufficed 
to exterminate the few remaining rebels. But Schuisky, 
instead of proceeding to Poutivle in search of the pre- 
tender, amused himself with laying siege to Rylsk. Boris, 

* Peyerle, p. 21. + Herberstain, p. 51 . 



86 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



dissatisfied with his conduct, and, perhaps, suspecting him 
of treason, restored the command to Mstislavski, who had 
scarcely recovered from his wounds, and who was quite as 
incompetent and almost equally disaffected. Such was the 
inexperience or the ill-will of the Russian generals, that, after 
having made all their preparations for the blockade of Rylsk, 
they allowed five thousand Cossacks who had sallied forth 
from Poutivle, to surprise one of their quarters, in broad 
daylight, and to revictual the town.* Discouraged by this 
disgraceful defeat, they took their revenge by ravaging 
Severia, burning the villages, and shooting or hanging the 
inhabitants, both men and women, whom they suspected of 
having welcomed the impostor.f Then, that they might be 
able to boast to Boris of a success which they believed would 
be easy, they marched against Kromy, a little town fortified 
only by an enclosure of palisades, in the persuasion that they 
would carry it by the first assault. But there was in Kromy 
an old ataman named Korela, a veteran partisan, who had 
come from the banks of the Don with the reputa- 
tion of being a wonderful sorcerer, f The chroniclers have 
handed down to us a narrative of some of his magical tricks, 
which, probably, will not greatly astonish our modern 
engineers. When they had invested the place, the Russians 
set fire, with combustible arrows, to the palisades, and to the 
straw huts which served as the habitations of the little 
garrison of Kromy, which consisted only of six hundred Don 
Cossacks. Behind the burnt palisades, they were greatly 
astonished to find a deep trench and a rampart of earth. 
Posted in holes, at the foot of this rampart, the Cossacks 
fired under cover, and shot the enemy at their ease. It became 
necessary, therefore, to abandon the idea of an attack by 
main force. But then, a new diabolical invention made 

* Peyerle, p. 22. He exaggerates greatly, as it would appear, the 
importance of this success of Demetrius, 
f Baer, p. 49 ; Peyerle, p. 23. 
X " Ein grosser Zauberer ; " Petreius, p. 304. 



INVESTMENT OF KROMY. 



87 



its appearance ; from within the great enclosure-ditch 
Korela carried long trenches in various directions into the 
country. Whenever a Muscovite outpost displayed any 
negligence, a band of Cossacks, issuing from beneath the 
ground, fell upon them and cut them to pieces, and then, as 
soon as reinforcements came in sight, disappeared more 
rapidly than a fox into their subterranean burrow. In- 
cessantly harassed by their invisible enemies, the generals of 
Boris spent two months before this petty fortalice, rather 
besieged than besieging it. * 

Demetrius, although he felt himself too weak to resume 
the campaign, nevertheless waged against his enemies an 
active and most dangerous warfare. From Poutivle, where 
he had fixed his head-quarters, he succeeded in coming to a 
secret understanding with a number of officers in the camp 
before Kromy. His letters and manifestos inundated the 
army, and reached even to Moscow. In them he related 
how, having escaped from the daggers of Boris, he had 
been obliged to conceal his existence and his residence until 
the day when Providence had permitted him, sword in 
hand, to reclaim the inheritance of his ancestors. He further 
declared that the king of Poland, his ally, would send him 
a numerous army, and that in the spring he would march 
upon Moscow with irresistible forces.f The ravages and 
cruelties exercised throughout Severia by the army of 
Boris, had exasperated the inhabitants. From every side 
recruits flocked to Poutivle, breathing nought but vengeance, 
and ready to die for their Tsarevitch. In all the towns and 
villages of that province, one of the most populous in Russia, 
the bravery, the clemency, and the affability of Demetrius 

* The exact date of the investment of Kromy is not known. I suppose 
that it must have taken place at the beginning of the spring, for it would 
be difficult to understand how these underground passages could be made 
during the winter in Russia. See Baer, p. 51. 

f Baer, p. 49. 



88 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



were extolled to the skies. As soon as he has re-entered 
?>Joscow, it 'was said, there is nothing that he will not do for 
his faithful subjects — martyrs in the good cause. On the 
other hand, numerous and skilful emissaries were seeking 
to gain over the foreign soldiers, who formed the elite of the 
army of Boris ; men who made war their trade, and who 
were always ready to change sides for the hope of more 
advantageous pay and richer booty.* 

These intrigues did not pass unnoticed by the penetration 
of Boris. On hearing of the first progress made by Deme- 
trius, he had said to his Boyards, " looking into the whites 
of their eyes/' according to the expression of an old 
chronicler: "Behold your work ! you wish to dethrone me/'f 
Now, he felt that all his means had failed him at once. His 
fortune had deserted him, and his physical strength no 
longer equalled the energy of his soul. Ill in health, 
discouraged in spirit, betrayed by his own creatures, he 
saw around him none but perfidious looks, studying his 
countenance and all his gestures in order to obtain some 
indication of his approaching end. His most intimate 
advisers had incurred his suspicion, and he incessantly 
imagined that he saw them calculating whether treason 
would be more profitable to them than fidelity. Everything 
turned against him : he had congratulated the foreign 
soldiers on their brave conduct at Dobrynitchi, had given 
them money and clothing, and had promised them pensions 
and estates at the conclusion of the war. "With yoii/ J he 
said, " I am ready to share my last shirt. >} 1 These praises 
and this liberality had deeply offended the Russians, who 
were always jealous of the Germans. 

Basmanof, who had been summoned to Moscow to receive 
the reward of his valiant defence of Novgorod, seemed to 
have become the favourite of the Tsar. In him alone, 
Boris reposed confidence. He announced his intention to 

* Peyerle, p. 30. f Eaer, p. 45. $ Baer, p. 50. 



POSITION OF BORIS. 



s9 



send him to the army which was besieging Kromy, with 
authority equal to that of Prince Mstislavski, the first 
Boyard of the Council, and perhaps the most powerful 
nobleman in the Empire. To divide the command is, under 
all circumstances, a fault, but in this instance it was an 
immense danger, for the Boyards regarded the intrepid 
governor of Novgorod as a mere upstart whose rising favour 
gave them umbrage. Whilst he was lavishing rewards of 
the most flattering character upon Basmanof, Boris had 
sent reprimands, which were perhaps unjust, to Prince 
Mstislavski, who was still suffering from his wounds, and 
had made him responsible for the ill -success of his arms 
against a small wooden fortress defended by a handful of 
desperate men. Finally, either because he was afraid of 
offending the Boyards by giving them Basmanof for their 
chief, or because he was desirous to keep that officer near 
his person in anticipation of a fatal eventuality which he 
already dreaded, he sent Prince Katiref to Kromy, with 
express orders to make an end of Korela's gang; so that he 
wounded the self-love of his generals, and gave them a 
superior who had as little experience and skill as themselves 
in the art of war. All these measures, taken hastily and, 
as it were, in the last extremity, augmented the number of 
malcontents, and revealed to all the anxiety of Boris. 
Formerly the Boyards had secretly cursed the orders of the 
Tsar, now they braved them openly, regarding his cause as 
altogether lost. Several noblemen of distinction and a large 
number of soldiers left the camp of Kromy, and repaired to 
Poutivle to offer their services to the pretender.* 

The clergy alone remained faithful to Boris. They knew 
that two Polish Jesuits had accompanied Demetrius in his 
expedition, and that they were admitted into his councils; 
this was quite enough to alarm Russian orthodoxy. It is 
true that Demetrius made a public profession of the Greek 

* Margeret, p. 117. Karamzin, vol.xi. pp. 226, 227. 



90 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



form of worship, but he had manifested, for what was called 
at Moscow the Latin heresy, a complacency which had 
awakened suspicions that he secretly cherished it in his 
heart. Thus, for instance, at Poutivle he had permitted 
the Catholic Poles of his guard to celebrate publicly, in 
conformity with their ritual, the festival of the Annunciation; 
and, to the excessive scandal of the ideas of the period, 
salvos of artillery had been fired on the occasion of this 
solemnity. He had moreover presented images to various 
Latin priests, and had decorated their altars with precious 
fabrics. * In the opinion of the devout Muscovites, 
Demetrius was an enemy of the Church, and fanatics 
were found willing to gain the palm of martyrdom for 
delivering holy Russia from the scourge which threatened it. 

Three monks arrived at Poutivle from Moscow, bearing 
letters for several inhabitants of the former town, which 
they delivered with the greatest secresy. They were 
addressed to them by Boris, who promised the good people 
of Poutivle a complete amnesty, and magnificent privileges 
and rewards, if they would deliver up to him Demetrius 
dead or alive, together with the Poles of his body-guard. 
These monks, according to their own account, had long 
resided in the monastery from which the impostor who 
pretended to be the Tsarevitch had escaped. 64 He is an 
impious renegade," they said. " His true name is Grishka 
Otrepief ; and we, his superiors, have oftentimes punished 
him for his addiction to magic and other evil practices. " 
All the inhabitants of Poutivle were devoted to Demetrius ; 
accordingly, as soon as they had delivered their message, 
the three monks were arrested. They were conducted into 
a room where a young man, who seemed to be the object 
of general respect, was sitting, dressed in rich clothes, and 
surrounded by a crowd of gentlemen and atamans. It was a 
Pole named Iwanicki, whom Demetrius had temporarily 
t 

* Bareze, p. 29. 



ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE DEMETRIUS. 



91 



appointed to act his part. "Do you know the Tsarevitch ? * 
was the question put to the prisoners. The monks, summoning 
up their courage, exclaimed that the pretended Tsarevitch 
was an impostor, and probably recognised in Iwanicki their 
old companion Grishka Otrepief. * They were then put 
to the torture. Two were unmoved by the most cruel 
torments ; t but the third gave way, and cried out for 
mercy, promising to make full revelations. He was imme- 
diately led before Demetrius. On seeing him, he fell with 
his face towards the ground, and exclaimed : " Yes, thou 
art the Tsar ! " Then he declared to him that his youngest 
companion was the bearer of a subtle poison, concealed in 
the sole of his shoe, which, by the connivance of two Boyards, 
who pretended to be deserters, was to be mingled with the 
incense offered to Demetrius in the church of Poutivle. 
" He who inhales this pestiferous vapour, " added the 
monk, "will swell and die at the end of ten days. These 
are the instructions which Boris sends to the traitors who 

* Peyerle, pp. 26, 27. * 
f With reference to the almost incredible firmness of the Muscovites in 
ers during torture, see the Diarium in Moscoviam P. I. ac M. D. Ign. Xpi de 
Guarient et Rail. Vienna?, p. 207. The author, who was the ambassador 
of the Emperor of Austria to Peter the Great, relates that in 1696, a 
Colonel of Strelitz was put to the question four times without it being 
possible to extort any avowal from him. The Tsar then embraced him, 
and said : " I know that thou hast conspired against me, but thou hast 
suffered enough. I pardon thee. Thou shalt retain thy rank. Now con- 
fess thy crime, not from fear, but from gratitude to thy master who 
esteems thee." This man, previously so impassible, burst into tears, and 
returning to the Tsar his kiss of peace, said : " This is a kind of torture 
which I cannot resist." Then he confessed that he had been a member of 
a secret society, all the associates of which had practised themselves to 
endure tortures ; that he himself, before obtaining the high rank which he 
held in the society, had endured six trials, in comparison with which the 
torments of Peter's executioners were, he said, mere child's play. " They 
are nothing but whipping and burning on the back. Among ourselves, 
we have learned to resist pain far more acute. We can put live coals into 
our ears ; or else, icy cold water may be poured, drop by drop, upon our 
shaven heads, from a great height ; and so forth." 



92 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



surround you." Probably no one in Europe at this period 
would have ventured to call in question the efficacy of this 
marvellous poison. The two Boyards whom the monk had 
denounced, were put to the question ; they confessed their 
crime, and, the populace of Poutivle having requested and 
obtained permission to punish them, they were fastened to 
stakes, and shot to death slowly with arrows and arquebuses. 
The informer received a handsome reward ; the other two 
monks were cast into prison, as their sacred character 
doubtless preserved them from being punished with death. * 
Such attempts turned only to the confusion and disgrace 
of their authors, and served the cause of the pretender more 
effectually than any victory. It is stated that, after the 
traitors had been dealt with, Demetrius wrote to the 
Patriarch Job and to Boris, to reproach them for the 
unworthy means which they had so unskilfully employed. 
iC As for myself/' said the impostor, with poignant irony, 
iC I am willing to act with clemency towards you. Let 
Boris hasten to descend from a throne which he has usurped, 
let him seek in the solitude of a cloister to make his peace 
with heaven, I will forget his crimes, and I even assure him 
of my all-powerful protection." f Boris read this letter in 
a transport of rage. He felt himself impotent to punish 
these bravados, for he still continued to receive the most 
discouraging news. Entrenched within his earthen fort, 
Korela continued to laugh at the attacks of an army of 
eighty thousand men. The Russian generals had hoped 
they would be able to starve him into a surrender; but 
either through negligence or treason, five hundred Cossacks 
conveyed a supply of powder and provisions into Kromy in 
broad daylight.j On the other hand, reinforcements daily 
joined Demetrius in large numbers. A strong body of 
Polish adventurers arrived in Poutivle, asserting that 

* Peyerle, pp. 23, 24 ; Bareze, pp. 26, 27. 
f Grevenbrouch, p. 18 ; De Thou, cap. 135. £ Baer, p. 51. 



DEATH OF BORIS. 93 

Sigismund was collecting a formidable army, at the head 
of which he would march to Moscow with his ally, the 
legitimate son of the Tsar Ivan. The Russian generals 
wrote to their master that they could no longer answer for 
the fidelity of their soldiers. They exaggerated the strength 
of the enemy, and accused each other of negligence, agree- 
ing only on one point, namely, their inability to check the 
rebellion. Overwhelmed by this melancholy intelligence, 
Boris made superhuman efforts to conceal his despair. 
Already, perhaps, his only desire was to die like a king. On 
the 13th of April, 1605, he presided over his council as 
usual, but all the Boyards were struck by the alteration in 
his looks. His still energetic soul could no longer sustain 
his toil-worn body. Suddenly he staggered and fainted. 
In an instant, however, he recovered consciousness, but 
he felt that he was stricken to death. Clad in the garb of 
a monk, as beyond all hope of recovery, he received the last 
sacraments, and, according to the custom of the time, took 
a religious name.^ On the same day, he expired in the 
arms of his wife and children. It is probable that, exhausted 
by anxiety and labour, he wasted his remaining vitality in 
his efforts to appear before his courtiers with an unruffled 
brow. However, he deceived no one. The people even 
believed that he had poisoned himself. " He has done him- 
self justice," it was said. " He has forestalled the ven- 
geance of the prince whose throne he has usurped. He has 
lived like a lion, and reigned like a fox ; now he has died like 
a dog. n f Such was the recollection which his contemporaries 

* JBogoIep, agreeable to God. Gos. Gramoty, Letter of the Patriarch 
Job, vol. ii. p. 189. 

f Baer, p. 58 ; Peyerle, p. 33 • Margeret, p. 118 ; Lubienski, Opera 
Posth., p. 155. According to some annalists, Boris fainted on rising from 
table, and this circumstance may have given occasion to the report of his 
having been poisoned. Subsequently Basmanof was accused of having 
poisoned him ; but it does not appear that any of his contemporaries 
credited this opinion. Suicide is, in my opinion, very unlikely ; however, 



94 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



retained of a man, whose government and reign contributed 
powerfully to prepare the way for the future greatness of 
Russia. Not a tear was shed over his tomb ; the services 
which he had rendered to his country had long been for- 
gotten. The calumny which had pursued him during his 
whole lifetime did not spare his memory. He was cursed 
for his ambition, his despotism, his severity, and most of all 
for the crime to which it was supposed that he was indebted 
for his throne. At the present day, we may inquire whether 
his love of order, and his firm determination to introduce 
useful reforms into his country, were not the real causes of 
the hatred with which he was regarded by his contem- 
poraries. 

it is not improbable that Boris may have desired to rescue himself by a 
voluntary death from the ignominious treatment which the victor might 
have in store for him. He had for a long while been suffering from gout, 
and the painful emotions which he experienced during the last days of 
his life were amply sufficient to occasion a fatal crisis. See Karamzin, 
vol. xi. p. 234. 



PROCLAMATION OF TSAR FEODOR. 



95 



CHAPTER VI. 



PROCLAMATION OF FEODOR, BORISSOVITCH. — BASMANOF IS SENT TO THE CAMP. 

— DEFECTION OF THE ARMY. PROCLAMATION OF DEMETRIUS AS TSAR. 

DEATH OF TSAR FEODOR AND HIS MOTHER. — CONDUCT OF DEMETRIUS TO 
HIS ENEMIES. — HIS ENTRANCE INTO MOSCOW. 

On the day following his death, the body of Boris was 
conveyed into the sepulchre of the Tsars, where it was not 
destined to remain very long ; and this hasty interment 
contributed not a little to confirm the report of his suicide.* 
Immediately after, the Patriarch Job and the Boyards of 
the Council took an oath of fidelity to his son Feodor, a lad 
of sixteen or seventeen years of age. Following their 
example, all the public functionaries and the Strelitz of 
Moscow hastened to kiss the cross before the new Tsar.f 
The death of Boris had been so sudden and unexpected, 
that the partisans of Demetrius had had no time to prepare 
for it. Besides, before attempting to rouse the people of 
the capital to insurrection, it was necessary to wait for the 
army to declare itself. When the funeral ceremony of 
Boris, and the payment of homage to his son, were termi- 
nated at Moscow, Basmanof set out for the camp before 

* Baer, p. 51. 

+ The formula of this oath, which has been preserved, prohibits obedi- 
ence to the bandit who has assumed the name of Demetrius, but he is no 
longer called Otrepief. Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 247, supposes that this was 
the result of forgetfulness on the part of the Boyards ; would it not rather 
be because the fable of the apostate monk had ceased to deceive any one 1 
Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 192. 



96 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



Kromy, with directions to receive from the troops their oath 
of fidelity to the new Tsar. In fact, the fate of the Empire 
depended upon the course which they adopted ; and the 
widowed Tsarina, as well as her adviser the Patriarch, 
thought they would best obey the last wishes of the deceased 
Tsar, by entrusting his son and his army to the best of his 
generals and the most faithful of his subjects. Nothing then 
had given them cause to doubt the devotedness of Basmanof. 
He had lately resisted the allurements as well as the arms of 
Demetrius. With the reputation of a skilful captain and a 
loyal soldier, he seemed the only man who was capable of 
stifling the rebellion. He left Moscow full of hope, and 
resolved to fight for the son of his benefactor. 

At his arrival in the camp before Kromy, Basmanof found 
the fortress reduced to extremities by the want of provisions 
and ammunition ; but the besieging army, ravaged by 
dysentery, and already aware of the death of Boris, appeared 
to him discouraged, and half inclined to revolt. Prince 
Feodor Mstislavski was in open quarrel with Ivan Godounof, 
the brother of Boris, who commanded part of the troops. 
The Boyards and gentlemen were not less divided than the 
generals. No one cared any longer to obey, now that Boris 
was dead ; each aspired to govern the Empire, and to turn 
to his own advantage the weakness of the child who had just 
been crowned. Nevertheless, Basmanof assembled the army, 
and proclaimed the new Tsar, Feodor Borissovitch, without 
the slightest murmur of opposition. The letter of the 
Patriarch, and the formula of the oath of fidelity, were read. 
Officers and soldiers kissed the cross with the ordinary cere- 
monial. The Princes Mstislavski and Schuisky returned to 
Moscow, in obedience to the summons of the young Tsar, 
who was anxious to lend the authority of their names to the 
Council of the Empire.* After their departure, the com- 

* I have here followed the version of all the Kussian annalists. Accord- 
ing to Zolkiewski alone, Schuisky administered an oath of fidelity to the 



PLANS OF DEMETRIUS. 



07 



mand of the army was divided between Prince Galitzin, 
Ivan Godounof, and Basmanof. On witnessing the arrival 
in the camp of the hero of Novgorod, it was supposed 
that military operations would assume a new aspect ; but 
such was not the case. The siege, or rather the blockade, 
was conducted with the same want of vigour as before; but 
at the same time, the secret parleys between the insurgents 
of Poutivle and the besieging camp continued with greater 
activity than ever. 

Three weeks passed in this manner, without Demetrius 
appearing at all anxious to succour the garrison of Kromy, 
and without the Muscovites attempting a new assault upon 
Korela, or even thinking of scouring the country in the 
neighbourhood. At length, about the middle of May, 1605, 
Demetrius despatched from Poutivle a squadron of Polish 
hussars, and five hundred Circassians* whom he had lately 
enrolled. At their head was a Polish captain named 
Zaporski, who marched boldly against the Muscovite 
camp, affirming wherever he went that his troops formed 
only the vanguard of an immense army. He was preceded 
by a Cossack bearing a letter from Demetrius to the ataman 
Korela and the notables of Kromy, in which the prince 
announced to them the approach of his vanguard, composed, 
he said, of two thousand hussars, and eight thousand 
Russian cavalry. He intended to march to their assistance 
in person very soon, and was only waiting for the arrival of 
the Polish forces, to the number of forty thousand men, who 

troops, and declared to them that the pretender was an impostor, calling 
to witness one of the Nagoi, who declared that he had buried his nephew 
with his own hands. It appears to me more probable that Sehuisky, on the 
contrary, avoided, with his usual caution, any open declaration of his views 
on this occasion. Zolkiewski MSS., p. 12. 

* Peyerle, p. 27. Piatigortsi, people of the five mountains. Under 
this name the hordes of Kouban and Terek are designated in the map of 
Feodor Borissovitch. These mountaineers hired themselves as soldiers to 
all who would pay them. The Piatigortsi are the Kabardians of the 
present day, a branch of the Circassian nation subject to Russia. 

F 



98 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



were distant not more than sixteen miles from Poutivle. 
According to all appearance, this letter was merely a pretext 
offered by Demetrius to the Russian generals, whom his 
secret agents had already gained over. It was necessary to 
strike terror into the minds of the timid and wavering ; and 
besides, it would have been disgraceful to submit to a prince 
whose entire army consisted only of a few bands of undis- 
ciplined Cossacks.* 

The Muscovites occupied two camps around Kromy, 
which were separated by one of the affluents of the Oka. 
The first was under the command of Basmanof and Galitzin ; 
the second, a little further from Poutivle, was commanded 
by Ivan Godounof. The Cossack sent forward by Zaporski, 
acted his part to perfection ; he allowed himself to be 
captured by the outposts of Basmanof, delivered up his 
despatches, and, with imperturbable assurance, gave all the 
details which were required of him regarding the innumer- 
able forces of Demetrius, and the speedy arrival of his 
pretended Polish auxiliaries. The examination of the 
prisoner took place in presence of a large number of officers. 
A profound silence ensued when the Cossack had concluded 
his narrative, and every one seemed seeking to divine the 
sentiments of his companions. At length, Basmanof 
exclaimed : " Providence has declared itself ! It is Demetrius 
whom it desires to give us as our master. Let us no longer 
resist the decrees of Heaven ! " Prince Galitzin hastened 
to declare that he was of the same opinion, and that it only 
remained to discuss the measures to be taken to secure the 
adhesion of the army. 

* Peyerle, p. 31 ; Baer, p. 52. Peyerle asserts, in opposition to all 
likelihood, that the letter from Demetrius was fabricated by Zaporski, and 
that Galitzin and Basmanof were duped by it. But the manner in which 
the siege of Kromy was conducted, after the arrival of Basmanof, leaves 
no doubt with regard to the understanding of Demetrius with the leaders 
of the besieging army. I suppose that Peyerle obtained his information 
from Zaporski himself, but it is well known that subalterns always assume 
to themselves the principal part in their narratives. 



DEFECTION OF BASMANOF. 



99 



The defection of Basmanof was not suddenly provoked 
by the letter of Demetrius, but it was doubtless the result of 
the observations which he had made since his arrival before 
Kromy. A witness of the disorder which had followed the 
death of Boris, full of contempt for the weakness of the new 
Tsar, and fearing the ambition of the numerous family of 
Godounofs, he judged that it would be better, for himself 
in the first instance, and possibly even for Russia, to embrace 
the cause of a pretender, whose dupe he was not, but whose 
boldness and courage had extorted from him an involuntary 
admiration. He respected the vanquished of Dobrynitchi, 
and despised, from the bottom of his heart, a child who was 
governed by a woman and an old priest. He further 
perceived very clearly that, if he succeeded in preserving 
the crown of Feodor Borissovitch, the general who had 
conquered the rebels would ever hold, in the Court of his 
Sovereign, a rank inferior to that of the least of his relatives, 
the Godounofs, whereas an adventurer, who had no such 
family ties, would grant the first place to the captain who 
should open to him the gates of Moscow. 

Sure of the concurrence of the principal Russian officers, 
Basmanof judged it prudent to secure the co-operation of 
the commander of the foreign mercenaries, who, as he had 
at his disposal a body of four thousand well-disciplined 
soldiers, could throw great weight into the balance, if the 
question had to be decided by force of arms. Accordingly, 
he summoned into his tent the Baron de Rosen, who will be 
remembered as having fought valiantly at Dobrynitchi, and, 
without further preamble, invited him to join with him in 
proclaiming Demetrius as Tsar. At first, Rosen thought 
that this was a snare, and refused to do anything of the 
kind, protesting unalterable fidelity to Feodor. He quickly 
changed his tone, however, as soon as he became aware of 
the real intentions of the Russian generals. It was an easy 
thing to convince the officers, but the soldiers were rather 

f 2 



100 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



more scrupulous. The approach of the pretended Polish 
vanguard, that is to say, of the few troops commanded by 
Zaporski, finally decided those who wavered. Following 
the example of their commanders, the troops of Basmanof 
and Galitzin shouted, " God save Demetrius, Tsar of 
Russia ! 33 three weeks after they had cried " God save 
Feodor Borissovitch ! 33 

On hearing these acclamations, and perceiving the tumult 
which prevailed in the camp of Basmanof, the generals who 
occupied the other side of the river, ordered their troops 
under arms, and sent to inquire the cause of this unusual 
excitement. At first they were told that a great Polish 
army was advancing, and that preparations were being made 
to receive it. Presently, however, Basmanof and Galitzin * 
appeared on the bridge which separated the two camps. 
" Soldiers!" exclaimed Basmanof, raising above his head 
the letter of Demetrius, from which hung the imperial seal, 
" behold the order of our Tsar Demetrius Ivanovitch, whom 
the traitor Boris attempted to put to death. Preserved by 
the interposition of divine Providence, he is our legitimate 
Sovereign. Let all faithful Russians pass over to this side . 
As for the traitors, let them expect the fate of Boris and his 
accomplices ! " At these words, a frightful tumult arose. 
Swords were drawn, and a skirmish ensued. However, 
numbers were on the side of the partisans of Demetrius, 
who were supported, on the one hand, by Zaporski's Poles, 
and on the other, by a sortie of Korela and his Cossacks. The 
troops which had remained faithful to Feodor were intimi- 
dated, and laid down their arms. Several officers fled, and 

* Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 257, on the authority of the Annals of Nikon, 
p. 66, relates that Galitzin pretended to yield only to violence, and that 
he carried the comedy so far as to have himself bound hand and foot. 
This story is evidently incorrect. Demetrius, on the contrary, in a letter 
which has been preserved, ascribes to Galitzin the defection of the army. 
Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 198, letter of Demetrius to Sophia Mniszek, 
Starostina of Sanocz, and daughter-in-law of George Mniszek. 



SUBMISSION OF THE ARMY. 101 

numbers of soldiers dispersed without taking either side. A 
few German battalions marched to Moscow in good order.* 
Ivan Godounof was arrested and loaded with chains, and 
Basmanof took the command-in-chief. 

On the following day, Prince Galitzin proceeded to 
Poutivle with four thousand men, taking with him Godounof 
as a prisoner. It was not without surprise that his soldiers 
saw that the formidable army whose approach had been 
announced to them, was in reality composed only of a 
handfull of hussars and a few thousands of Cossacks ; but 
it was now too late to retract. On being brought into the 
presence of Demetrius, Galitzin cast himself at his feet, and 
besought him to act with clemency towards his mistaken 
but repentant subjects. 44 We were so led astray by the 
cunning of Boris," he said, 44 that at his death we recognised 
his son as his successor. We have promised to fight 
against a certain Grishka Otrepief, but not against our 
legitimate Tsar. The formula of the oath was dictated to 
us otherwise than as we thought. We cannot draw the 
sword against our sovereign, and as soon as we learned the 
truth, we hastened to greet thee. Resume the throne of 
thy glorious ancestors, and reign long and happily over us !"f 
Demetrius received his new subjects with his ordinary 
affability. He directed Basmanof to administer the oath of 

* Baer, p. 53 ; Peyerle, pp. 27 — 32. It results from the very circum- 
stantial narrative of Peyerle that the Baron de Rosen and part of the 
Germans were the first who declared for Demetrius. Baer, who will not 
admit the possibility of any one of his countrymen being a traitor, 
attributes to all the German mercenaries the conduct of a few battalions. 

f Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. pp. 196 — 198 ; letters from Demetrius to 
Stanislaus Mniszek and his wife Sophia, May 24, 1605. It is noteworthy 
that, in these letters, Basmanof is not even named, but only Prince 
Galitzin. We must not, I think, conclude from this that Basmanof played 
only a secondary part ; the favour with which he was subsequently treated 
by Demetrius proves that the pretender fully appreciated the importance 
of the service he had rendered. But Demetrius wished to make even his 
friends believe that he had been proclaimed by the general enthusiasm, 
and he is careful not to mention his principal agents. 



102 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



fidelity to the troops encamped around Kromy, and he 
made preparations to march at their head towards the 
capital, where his emissaries informed him that he was 
impatiently expected. 

Feodor, however, still occupied the Kremlin, and Moscow 
still obeyed him. A large and strongly-fortified town, 
containing a numerous garrison and an immense population, 
could not be carried by a coup de main, and it seemed fool- 
hardy to appear before its walls with an army which had 
been surprised rather than persuaded into obedience. 
Demetrius determined to sound the dispositions of the 
inhabitants. The first letters which he addressed to them 
were intercepted, and his emissaries slain by the Godounofs, 
who commanded in the name of Feodor. Without allowing 
themselves to be intimidated by this failure, on the 1st of 
June, 1605, two Russian gentlemen, named Poushkin and 
Plestscheief, bearing new manifestos, arrived at Krasnoe 
Salo, a large town near Moscow, inhabited by many rich 
merchants whose houses of business were in the capital. 
There, having assembled the elders and notables of the 
place, they read a letter from Demetrius, containing a promise 
of a complete amnesty in case of immediate submission, and 
threats of terrible punishment if obedience were delayed. 
" If my envoys do not return with a satisfactory answer/' 
he said at the conclusion, 16 I will give quarter to no one, 
not even to children at the breast. 1 " * 

Poushkin and Plestscheief, accompanied by a large number 
of the inhabitants of Krasnoe Salo, who were intended to 
serve as their escort, entered Moscow, and calling the people 
together in the public square, charged them to acknowledge 
and proclaim their legitimate sovereign, Demetrius, the son 
of Ivan. Most of the boyards of the council joined them at 
once, together with a number of illustrious exiles who, on 
hearing of the death of Boris, had hastened to return to 



* Baer, p. 54. 



PROCLAMATION OF DEMETRIUS. 



103 



Moscow. The people, who had already been worked upon 
by the emissaries of Demetrius, made the air resound with 
their acclamations, and in an instant the revolution was con- 
summated. A contemporary relates that Basil Schuisky, 
the same who had presided over the inquiry into the events 
of Ooglitch, was called upon by the Muscovites to declare 
whether it was true that Demetrius was not dead. Schuisky 
unhesitatingly replied that the corpse which he had seen 
was not that of the Tsarevitch, but the body of the son of 
a priest who had been slain in his stead.* This declaration 
was received with the utmost enthusiasm, and the populace 
thereupon proceeded to the Kremlin, and seized upon 
Feodor, his sister Xenia, and the Tsarina, widow of Boris. 
They were con ducted from the palace to the house which Boris 
had occupied before his accession to the throne. They were 
treated with respect, but as prisoners, and a numerous guard 
kept watch over them to prevent every attempt at escape, 
until the new master should give directions regarding their 
fate. As for the brothers and other relatives of Boris, they 
were all loaded with chains, subjected to outrages of all 
kinds, and finally sent half naked, on miserable carts, to the 
camp of the victor.f Not one of them attempted to resist, 
and not a single sword was drawn to defend the young prince 
to whom, less than a month before, all the Muscovites had 
sworn fidelity and allegiance. 

This popular manifestation was succeeded by an orgie. 
No one attempted to exert any authority in Moscow, for, 
of the boyards of the council, some were awaiting the upshot 
of events in concealment in their houses, and others had 
hastened to Kromy to pay their homage to the new sovereign. 

* " Er berichtete dasz Demetrius des Boris Gudenows Nachstellung ent- 
kommen, und eiues priestes sohn an seiner stadt erschlagen, und fiirstlich 
begraben worden." Petreius, p. 310. Schuisky was no friend to Boris ; 
be knew that Demetrius was advancing at the head of 100,000 men, and 
he had no ambition to become a martyr in the cause of truth. 

f Baer, p. 55. Petreius, p. 312. 



104 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



The Patriarch Job lay weeping at the foot of the altar.* Free 
from control for a day, the populace invaded the Kremlin, 
and set to work to break open the cellars of the palace. Now 
that Boris was conquered, the pillage of his goods seemed a 
legitimate right. However, on the remonstrances of a few 
men of influence, the multitude abandoned their project ; 
but, in compensation for their forbearance, they rushed into 
the quarter of the Germans, forced open the shops, and 
indulged in all kinds of disorders. If we may believe the 
Lutheran pastor Martin Baer, who then resided at Moscow, 
a boyard named Bielsky, formerly a favourite of Ivan, but 
afterwards disgraced by Boris, and who had recently 
returned from banishment, excited the mob to violence, and 
proposed to them to drink the wine of the Germans. He 
acted thus from a spirit of vengeance, and this was the 
motive of his animosity : — A few years before, Boris had 
condemned Bielsky, I do not know for what crime, to have 
his beard plucked out, and the execution of the sentence had 
been entrusted to a German doctor ; for, at this period, at 
the Court of Moscow, no very precise distinction was made 
between the functions of a surgeon and those of a barber. 
Bielsky could not revenge himself upon the doctor who had 
deprived him of his beard, for he was dead ; so he turned 
his fury against all his fellow-countrymen, just as Haman 
was desirous to make all the Jews responsible for the 
insolence of Mordecai. He harangued the populace, and 
told them that Demetrius would certainly be offended if he 
found his cellars empty, but that in the vaults of the 
Germans, those zealous auxiliaries of Boris, they would find 
abundant means for drinking the health of the Tsar whom 
Providence had restored to Russia.f Whether this anecdote 
be true or not, and I only quote it as an illustration of the 
manners of the period, the very disorders which followed the 
revolution bear testimony to the mildness of the Muscovites. 



* Nikon, in Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 261. 



f Baer, p. 56, 



DEATH OF FEODOR AND HIS MOTHER. 



105 



The Germans, who had been treated well by Boris, were 
thought to be devoted to him ; many of them were rich and 
envied by their Russian neighbours ; and yet not one of 
them was subjected to ill-treatment, not one assassination 
was committed. A few shops, it is true, were broken into 
and pillaged, but the wine of the pagans was the object 
especially sought after by the Muscovite populace. To 
celebrate the joyous accession of the new Tsar, wine 
flowed in torrents, but, on that day at least, no blood was 
mingled with it.* 

On the 3rd of June, order having been thoroughly 
re-established, a deputation left Moscow to beg pardon of 
Demetrius : this is the established formula for a compliment 
of welcome in the Russian language, f It was further to 
beseech him to enter his capital, in which he would no 
longer find a single enemy. In fact, before Demetrius had 
left his quarters at Serpookhof, Feodor and the Tsarina his 
mother had ceased to live. Their bodies, enclosed within 
plain wooden biers, were privately conveyed to a monastery 
outside the town, together with the remains of Boris, now 
deemed unworthy to rest in the sepulchre of the Tsars at 
Moscow. % A report was spread that they had poisoned 
themselves, and details of a somewhat improbable character 
were even published regarding their death. According to 
these official narratives, the Tsarina, desirous to spare her 
children the disgrace of captivity, had prepared for them, 
without their knowledge, a violent poison of which she 
partook with them ; young Xenia, alarmed by the taste of 
the beverage, threw down the fatal cup in time to see her 
mother and brother expire before her eyes. § Other 
historians, probably better informed and less credulous, 
assert that the unfortunate prisoners were strangled in their 
dungeon, and give the names of the executors of the 



* Baer, p. 56. + Milosti prosim, we beg pardon. 

£ Nikon, in Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 269. § Peyerle, p. 33. 

F 3 



106 DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 

assassination, over which Prince Galitzin presided in person.* 
Feodor, attacked by four Strelitz, yielded only, it is said, 
after a desperate resistance, and with fearful struggles. 
Petre'ius affirms that he himself observed upon their corpses, 
when exposed in public, evident marks of strangulation, -f 
Although suicide was not an action unprecedented in the 
manners of the Russians, at this period, { assassination 
unhappily presents a much stronger appearance of proba- 
bility. Perhaps it was not commanded by Demetrius 
himself, as most chroniclers assert upon exceedingly vague 
presumptions ; § but the zeal of his agents doubtless did 

* Margeret, p. 124 ; Baer, p. 57 ; Letopis o miatejakh, p. 93. 

f "Zeichen nach dem stricke damit sie gewiirszert waren, gnugsam 
ausweiseten, welches ich mit leidlichen augen, nebenst viel hundert 
menschen gesehen hab ;" Petre'ius, p. 314. I do not know whether the 
evidence of Petre'ius is fully worthy of confidence, for, in the first place, 
we may question whether he was at Moscow in 1605? He came thither, 
in 1608, as the envoy of Charles IX., king of Sweden, according to 
M. Oustrialof (note 91, p. 274, of Baer's Chronicle). But, in another 
place (Preface to Baer, p. xvii.) M. Oustrialof tells us that Petre'ius had 
lived four years at Moscow, under Boris, Demetrius, and Basil Schuisky. 
This discrepancy might be removed by supposing that Petre'ius, though 
inhabiting Moscow as a private individual in 1605, was charged with a 
diplomatic mission in 1608. At all events, whether Petre'ius was or was 
not present at Moscow in 1605, he is not a witness on whom we may rely 
with certainty. His chronicle is a badly arranged compilation ; he pillages 
Baer unscrupulously, and generally repeats with longer words and less 
precision, the facts related by the pastor of ISTeustadt. 

X In 1578, at the battle of Wenden, the Russian cannoniers, abandoned 
by the troops which should have supported them, hanged themselves to 
the ranges of their guns that they might not see them fall into the hands 
of the Poles and Swedes who were offering them quarter. (Karamzin, 
vol. xi. p. 361). I will add that, as Boris was suspected of having 
committed suicide, that action could not have been absolutely contrary to 
the manners of the Muscovites who imputed it to him. 

§ Petre'ius, p. 313, asserts that Demetrius entrusted his deak or secretary, 
Ivan Bogdanof, with this cruel order. Baer, p. 57, states that the Tsar 
replied to a deputation who were pressing him to come to Moscow, " that 
he would not enter his capital until his enemies should have been extermi- 
nated to the very last man." It is well to remark here that only one of 
the Godounofs was put to death by his orders. The Chronicle of the 



HIS MARCH TO MOSCOW. 



107 



not wait to receive positive instructions. The remainder 
of the narrative will show that this young adventurer, far 
from being cruel, was endowed with a natural gentleness 
and generosity which were very rare at this epoch, even 
among the most polished nations of Europe. I prefer to 
believe that the men who, within the space of a month, had 
sworn two oaths of fidelity, and successively betrayed both 
Boris and Fedor, hastened, without orders, to rid their 
new master of enemies who, while alive, would have been 
to them an object of terror and remorse. 

Nevertheless, it must be admitted that Demetrius had 
left the field open to his agents, for his march towards 
Moscow was excessively slow. He halted for a considerable 
time at Toula, from whence he dispatched couriers into 
the whole of the empire to obtain an acknowledgment of 
his authority, and to impose the oath of homage. In all 
his proclamations, he forbade the people to obey either 
the wife of Boris or her son, whom he called Feodka, a 
contemptuous diminutive of the name of Feodor. * He 
already turned his attention to his foreign policy, as he now 
believed himself the absolute master in his dominions. An 
ambassador of King James II. had just left Moscow, on his 
return to England with letters from Boris. Demetrius sent 
an express messenger after him, took back the letters of 
Boris, and gave him others to his sovereign, with whom he 
was anxious to establish political relations without delay, f 
From Toula, he issued ukases, appointed governors, and 

Troubles confines itself to saying that the cursed one rejoiced in the death 
of the Tsarina and. her son, but it does not accuse him of having ordered 
it. " Ou je oka'iannyi rad byst." Letopis o miatejakh, p. 94. 

* Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 202 ;' Formula of the oath sent by Demetrius 
into the provinces. The style of this document is rather singular ; among 
other promises exacted by the new Tsar from his subjects, we find the 
following : I hiss the cross, that is to say, / swear not to give poison to his 
Majesty. 

t Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 275. 



108 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



awarded pardons and punishments. He used his victory, 
however, with clemency. One only of the relatives of 
Boris, Semen Godounof, was put to death by order of 
Demetrius; and this act of severity was probably not 
prompted by personal revenge, but rather granted as a 
satisfaction to the Russian nobility, who held Semen in 
execration as the chief of the secret police of Boris, and 
the ordinary adviser of his most rigorous measures. The 
other members of this family were exiled to Siberia or 
banished to distant fortresses;"* and, if we consider that, 
at this period, it was not unusual to exterminate an entire 
household for the crime of its head, it must be confessed 
that Demetrius gave proof of a moderation which surprised 
even his enemies themselves. 

Russian historians have severely censured his conduct 
towards the Patriarch Job, and ecclesiastical annalists 
especially cannot find terms strong enough to express the 
vehemence of their indignation. For my part, I find it 
impossible to share in their sentiments. Job was one of the 
creatures of his enemy, and the patriarchate itself was an 
institution of recent date, introduced during the reign of 
Feodor by Boris, solely from motives of personal policy. 
In order to rule the clergy more effectually, the Regent had 
determined to place over them a supreme head— to create a 
kind of Pope of the Russian Church, appointed by the 
Tsar, resident at the Court, and always ready to shield the 
imperial decrees by his authority. Boris had thus suc- 
ceeded in uniting all the power of the State within his own 
hands. Demetrius was not slow to perceive the political 
advantages of the institution ; he retained the patriarchate, 
but he could not do otherwise than change the Patriarch. 
Had not Job excommunicated him, denounced him as an 
apostate monk, and perhaps even encouraged fanatical 
assassins to attempt his life? It is true that, following the 



* Karamzin, vol. x. p. 158. 



DEPOSITION OF THE PATRIARCH JOB. 109 



example of all the lay and ecclesiastical dignitaries, the 
Patriarch, clad in the purple which he had received from 
Boris, had humbly submitted to the decrees of Providence ; 
and that, immediately after the popular outbreak at Moscow, 
he had sworn fidelity to the man against whom, a few days 
before, he had launched his anathemas :* but this weakness 
could not gain him forgiveness for his previous conduct. It 
would have been imprudent to leave at the head of the 
clergy so notorious a partisan of the fallen dynasty. 
Demetrius exercised the power which the Tsars of Russia 
have always possessed : he deposed the Patriarch and 
banished him to a convent. Rarely have the Greek clergy 
ventured to enter into conflict with the temporal power ; and 
on this occasion, they yielded without a murmur to the will 
of the sovereign. It cannot be denied that the execution 
of the decree which deprived Job of his high dignity, was 
accompanied by acts of violence, which created some revival 
of sympathy for that prelate, whose rapid palinode had 
thrown him into great discredit. He was celebrating mass 
in the Cathedral Church, when a troop of soldiers arrived 
to inform him of the commands of the new sovereign. 
Though deficient in courage, Job was not wanting in resig- 
nation ; with his own hands he unfastened his panagia, that 
is, the image of the Virgin, which the Patriarch bore upon 
his breast as a symbol of his dignity, and laid it down before 
the Virgin of St. Vladimir, praying Heaven to protect 
Russia and the orthodox church. He was then stripped of 
his pontifical robes, and his degradation was proclaimed in 
the name of the Tsar. A gown of coarse serge was put on 
him, and he was dragged out of the church, and conveyed in 

* Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 200 ; Manifesto of Demetrius. Platon, in his 
Krailcdia Tserhovndia RossiisTcaia Istoriia, vol. ii. p. 140, attempts to 
justify Job ; but he can find no other reason for deuyiog his very prompt 
submission, which is attested by several contemporaries, than to declare it 
improbable, " considering the great piety of the prelate." 



110 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



a miserable cart to the Monastery of the Assumption, where 
he was to take the vows.* 

Demetrius conferred the patriarchal dignity upon Ignatius, 
Bishop of Riazan ; and it is said, that on this occasion, he 
yielded to the influence of the Polish Jesuits who formed 
part of his retinue. Ignatius was a Greek, and had formerly 
been Archbishop of Cyprus. When that island was in- 
vaded by the Turks, he fled into Italy, and resided at Rome 
for a considerable period. It was declared that, while there, 
he had become secretly converted to Catholicism. -j- During 
the reign of Feodor Ivanovitch, he had travelled into Russia, 
and, on hearing the narrative of his misfortunes, the pious 
monarch had appointed him to the bishopric of Riazan .{ 
Whether he had changed his creed or not, the favour which 
Ignatius gained, first with the Holy See, and afterwards at 
the court of a prince firmly attached to the Greek religion, 
gives proof of the versatility of his character, and his ability 
to assume different masks according to his special need. 
Apart from the suspicions which the Russian clergy might 
entertain with regard to his orthodoxy, the choice of a 
foreign prelate could not but shock popular prejudices, and 

* Platon, vol. iii. p. 142. 

+ This statement would cease to be doubtful, if it be Ignatius who is 
spoken of in the following letter from Cardinal Borghese to the Apostolic 
Nuncio in Poland, dated Kome, Dec. 3, 1605. " Favorisca V. S. apresso il 
serenissimo Re (di Polonia) il Patriarca Ruteno, perche si mostra cosi 
obediente a questa Santa Sede, e non lasci di fare officio che le possa 
giovare, esortandolo a difendere 1' Uriione con tutto lo spirito." Tourghenief, 
Historica Russise Monimenta, vol. ii. p. 77. It is true that the Latin word 
Rutenus or Ruthenus, in Italian Ruteno, is employed by some authors of 
this period as synonymous with Russus or Moscovita. But it will be 
observed that this letter refers to the favour of the king of Poland, and 
to the Union. Now, the Patriarch of Moscow had nothing whatever to do 
with Sigismund or the Lithuanians. It seems evident to me that Cardinal 
Borghese alludes to the prelate who governed the United Greek Church of 
Lithuania and the Ukraine, for the Holy See. This was, I believe, the 
Bishop of Wilna. 

t Platon, vol. ii. p. 148. Letopis o Miatejakh, p. 95. 



POLICY OF DEMETRIUS. 



Ill 



confirm the reports already disseminated by Boris about the 
attachment of Demetrius to the doctrines of the Roman 
Church. 

Notwithstanding this mistake, the conduct of Demetrius 
since the defection of the camp at Kromy had been, on the 
whole, politic and carefully weighed. I do not know 
whether he had read Machiavellfs (i Prince," but it might be 
said that he attempted literally to follow the precepts of that 
great politician. All measures of severity had been rapidly 
taken, and instantaneously executed, before his entrance 
into Moscow ; and, free from the presence of all his enemies, 
the usurper had nothing but rewards to distribute when he 
took possession of his throne.* Then only would he con- 
sent to make his triumphal entrance into his capital. A 
large number of boyards had come to Toula to entreat him 
no longer to refuse his subjects the happiness of beholding 
their sovereign. He received them with a somewhat 
haughty air, and with a certain military abruptness, 
which displeased the Russian nobility, who had been 
accustomed to the utmost gravity of command in Ivan and 
Boris. Besides, these eager courtiers had had to endure 
other mortifications. They had been obliged to traverse 
the serried ranks of a host of fierce-looking Cossacks, proud 
of a Tsar of their own making, and thinking they might do 
what they pleased now that they had won the victory. The 
boyards who were known for their former attachment to 
Boris, had been received with coarse jests or terrible 
menaces. " Miserable Jews \" the Cossacks had shouted, 
64 how did you dare to resist your Tsar."f Afterwards, in 

* See Machiavelli's Prince, chap. viii. : " Of those who have attained 
sovereignty by their crimes." This book was very widely spread at this 
period, and apparently there already existed several Polish translations of it. 

+ This contemptuous epithet was bestowed by the Cossacks on the 
inhabitants of towns, and especially on the Muscovites. Palitsyne, p. 24. 
According to the Chronicle of the Troubles, some Boyards were roughly 
beaten. Letopis o Miatejakh, p. 91. 



112 DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 

the palace itself, the deputation of boyards had met several 
atamans of the Don, sent by their hordes to congratulate 
the new sovereign. Demetrius owed everything to the 
Cossacks, so he gave them his hand to kiss before offering 
it to the boyards, who swallowed the affront, but it remained 
deeply graven in their memory.* 

On the 20th of June, 1605, satisfied of the sincerity of 
the homage which he received from all parts of his Empire, 
Demetrius consented at length to make his entry into his 
capital. The notables of all classes of the population came 
a long distance to meet him, bearing rich presents, among 
which figured, on a golden salver, the symbolic bread and 
salt, emblems of the homage of the vassal to his sovereign. 
iC All is ready to receive thee," they said ; " rejoice ! Those 
who desired to devour thee, are now unable even to bite.^f 
Demetrius replied affably in a few words, that he had for- 
gotten the past, and that he hoped to prove to his Muscovites, 
not a Tsar but a father, ever anxious to promote the 
happiness of his children. Among the different deputations 
which had come out from Moscow, he remarked that of the 
foreign soldiers who, after the defection of the camp at 
Kromy, had remained faithful to Feodor to the last moment. 
They came to entreat the Tsar to pardon their attachment 
to a prince whom they had believed legitimate, and to 
promise equal fidelity to his successor, if their services 
should be accepted. <£ Your conduct does you honour/'' 
said Demetrius ; " I know that in you I shall find brave 
soldiers and loyal servants." He then inquired for the 
German officer, who at the battle of Dobrynitchi, had 
borne the banner of the battalion against which the 
impetuous charge of his hussars had proved ineffective. 
The ensign stepped forward, and the Tsar placed his hand 

* Nikon, p. 68. Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 273. 
f Baer, p. 60. This language is not at all vulgar in Russia; it is a 
thoroughly Oriental metaphor. 



HIS ENTRANCE INTO MOSCOW. 



113 



on his shoulder, and said to him with a gracious smile — 
<f Lord, preserve us from evil !"* 

The march now commenced, preceded by a detachment 
of cavalry, which was to reconnoitre the streets through 
which the procession was to pass. At every moment, 
orderlies gallopped to and fro with the report that all was 
quiet. In the vanguard rode the Polish hussars, armed 
cap-d-pied, twenty abreast, with their lances erect, and pre- 
ceded by their trumpeters and drummers. Then followed, 
in the same order, the foreign soldiers, the Cossacks, and 
the Strelitz. Demetrius, affecting to surround himself by 
his Russian subjects, appeared, mounted on a magnificent 
horse, in the midst of a crowd of boyards attired in their 
most splendid dresses. All the bells were ringing, and the 
streets were filled with a dense crowd ; even the roofs were 
covered with spectators, who made the air resound with 
their joyous acclamations. Wherever the Tsar passed, the 
crowd fell on their knees, exclaiming in the poetic language 
familiar to the Russian people: "Long live our father! 
May the Lord cover thee with his shadow in the road of 
life ! May he always grant thee the same mercy which 
has already saved thee from the wicked ones ! — We were in 
darkness, but now, behold! our red sun has reappeared!" 
— 44 Rise, my children," said Demetrius, " and pray to 
God for me."f When he had reached the open space in 
front of the Kremlin, Bogdan Bielsky, whose quality of 
exile during the previous reign gave him a sort of pre- 
eminence among the boyards, taking off his cap, returned 
thanks to God for the miraculous preservation of the Tsar, 
and adjured the people to be faithful to him ; then, taking 
from his bosom an image of St. Nicholas, he kissed it, as 

* Baer, p. 60. I am not sure whether these words are a sort of pious 
salutation, or whether Demetrius intended to allude to the war-cry of the 
Germans : Bilf Gott ! 

+ Petre'ius, p. 315. The same Russian word, hrasnoe (sohitse), signifies 
red and beautiful. This is one of those original metaphors so common in 
every language which has not yet been spoiled by pedants. 



114 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



if to sanctify his oath, and exclaimed loudly : " People ! 
honour and defend your lord ! 33 The crowd answered with 
one voice : " God help our lord the Tsar, and confound all 
his enemies \ 9> * At this moment, a gust of wind raised 
such a cloud of dust, that it covered the place, and hid the 
Tsar and his escort from the blinded multitude. The 
superstitious Muscovites took alarm at the omen. " Mis- 
fortune ! 33 exclaimed a few voices ; f but the wind sub- 
sided, and the sinister augury was immediately forgotten. 
All hearts gave themselves up to rejoicing. Demetrius was 
young, and a good horseman ; he had that bold and affable 
look which always pleases the multitude. All had sought, 
and fancied they saw on his countenance, the well-known 
signs which attested his origin. "He is our true Tsar," 
they said ; " the race of Rurik will not perish/" 

At the doors of the cathedral, the clergy in their festal 
robes came forward, bearing the holy images. Demetrius 
instantly dismounted, and kissed them with devotion ; but 
at that moment, either from ignorance of Russian usages, 
or with military maliciousness, the trumpets of the Poles 
sounded a flourish, which silenced the chants of the Church. J 
Besides the shocking scandal which this occasioned to the 
devout, those trumpets reminded the Muscovites that their 
sovereign had been brought back to them by foreigners. 

Demetrius, after having heard divine service in the cathe- 
dral, instead of entering at once into the palace which had 
been prepared for his reception, repaired to the church of 
St. Michael the Archangel, to pray before the tomb of Ivan 
the Terrible. He knelt down, shed abundant tears, and 
kissing the marble with well-feigned transport, exclaimed : 
" O my father, thy orphan reigns, and to thy holy prayers 
he owes his throne !" His emotion was communicative, and 
all the spectators wept with him, repeating : " He is indeed 
the son of the Terrible Ivan ! >} § 

* Baer, p. 61. f Petrei'us, p. 317. + Letopis o Miatejakh, p. 95. 
§ KaramziD, vol. xi. p. 280. 



KECALL OF THE EXILES. 



115 



CHAPTER VII. 



DEMETRIUS RECALLS THE EXILES — AND CONSTITUTES HIS COUNCIL. — HE 
ASSUMES THE TITLE OF CiESAR. — HIS LAWS REGARDING THE CONDITION 

OF SERFS. HIS INTERVIEW WITH THE WIDOW OF IVAN THE TERRIBLF. 

HIS ACTIVITY, AND ATTENTION TO PUBLIC BUSINESS. — HIS RELIGIOUS 
FAILINGS. — HIS IDEAS OF SLAVONIC UNITY. — HIS ECCLESIASTICAL REFORMS. 
— CONSPIRACY OF BASIL SCHUISKY — ITS DISCOVERY. — CLEMENCY AND 
GENEROSITY OF DEMETRIUS. 

The first care of Demetrius was to recall the exiles, not 
only the Nago'i, whom he called his relatives, but also all 
those persons who had, from any cause whatever, incurred 
the displeasure of Boris. A dispossessed Tartar prince, 
Simeon Bekhoulatovitch, a vain phantom of a sovereign, 
had been banished to a distance from Moscow, and even, it 
was said, deprived of sight by Boris, who was pitiless in his 
suspicions.* He was recalled to Court, and received per- 
mission to resume the title of Tsar, which did not wound 

* Margeret has confounded the Tsar Simeon to whom reference is here 
made, with the dispossessed Tsar of Kazan, Yedighar Makhmed, who, on 
his conversion to Christianity, received the name of Simeon. This latter 
Tsar died in 1565. Tsar Simeon, son of Bekboulat, Prince of Kassimof, 
was brother-in-law to Prince Mstislavski. According to Margeret, he 
became blind in the following manner : — " Being in exile, the said 
Emperor Boris sent him a letter by which hopes were given him that he 
would be shortly reinstated, and he who brought the letter, together with 
some Spanish wine which was sent to him by Boris, having made him 
drink of it, as well as his servant, to the health of the Emperor, they 
both, a short time afterwards, became blind, and the said Tsar Simeon 
is so still. I have heard him tell this story with his own mouth." 
Margeret, p. 95. 




116 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



the vanity of Demetrius, as, in truth, he already meditated 
the assumption of a still higher title. This act of clemency 
was easily granted, for Simeon had long ceased to cause 
any disquietude ; but Demetrius gave proof of still greater 
generosity, by pardoning the relatives of Boris, who had 
been arrested, as we have seen, immediately after the deposi- 
tion of Feodor. Not long afterwards, several of them were 
even appointed voivodes — of provinces, it is true, far distant 
from the capital.* 

No sooner was he established in the Kremlin, than De- 
metrius hastened to constitute the Council of the Empire, 
and to determine the ranks and functions of the persons 
whom he appointed to form part of it. This council was 
divided into several sections. In the first were the eccle- 
siastics, namely, the Patriarch, three metropolitans, seven 
archbishops and three bishops ; in all, fourteen dignitaries 
belonging to the Church. The second section included the 
great officers of the crown, and the boyards of the first-class 
to the number of thirty-six. In the third section, there 
were seventeen okolnitchi, or boyards of the second-class ; 
and, finally, six gentlemen were authorised to sit behind the 
boyards, probably as secretaries or masters of requests.f 
The introduction of bishops into the Council of the Empire, 
was an innovation evidently borrowed from the Court of 
Poland, which served Demetrius as a prototype which he 
thought he could not do better than imitate. It seems, 
however, that he paid too little attention to the choice of 
his ecclesiastical councillors. He could not be ignorant of 
the repugnance of the clergy to obey him, and yet, when 
he dictated the list of the members of his council, it is 
evident that he was guided far more by the importance of 
the episcopal sees than by the more or less fervent attach- 
ment of the titulars to his person. With the exception of 

* Karanizin, vol. xi. p. 282. 
+ See the list of this council, Gos. Granioty, vol. ii. p. 207. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE COUNCIL. 



117 



the Patriarch, who, as a foreigner, felt that his fortune was 
closely bound up with that of the new sovereign, all the 
prelates served him, not only without zeal, but with flagrant 
disaffection. 

The same carelessness presided over the choice of his lay 
functionaries. Full of confidence in himself — and who 
would not have been blinded by such astounding suc- 
cesses ? — Demetrius felt within him the energy of command, 
and did not doubt that he would easily bend to his will men 
for whom he entertained most supreme contempt. The first 
rank among the boyards was assigned to Prince Feodor 
Mstislavski, who had held it under Boris. After him came 
the two brothers, Basil and Demetrius Schuisky.* These 
three personages had done nothing to deserve this dis- 
tinction, excepting Basil Schuisky, who had avowed that he 
had formerly perjured himself by signing the report of theOog- 
litch inquiry. Mstislavski, who had been shamefully defeated 
before Novgorod, might pass for an example of the magnani- 
mity of the Tsar, who had raised his ancient adversary to the 
chief rank among his boyards; but it was easy to act generously 
towards so mediocre a personage, and Prince Feodor owed 
his elevation, perhaps as much to his defeat as to his 
illustrious birth. It must be remarked that Peter Bas^ 
manof, to w T hom Demetrius was under such heavy obligations, 
sat in the council only in the eighteenth rank. He was, 
however, the first admitted among the boyards who had not 
the title of prince, with the single exception of the Nagoi, 
whose pretended relationship to the Tsar, necessarily placed 
them in an entirely exceptional position. After all, this 
distinction of precedence was a matter of pure etiquette, 
and, in reality, Basmanof was the confidential adviser in the 

* Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 207. How can we believe that Demetrius 
would have admitted Basil Schuisky into his council, if the latter declared 
him an impostor before the army at Kromy, as Zolkiewski states that 
he did 1 



118 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



new Senate. The elevation of this general of obscure birth, 
which had been begun by Boris and completed by De- 
metrius, was not at all agreeable to the old Russian nobility. 
They still found it difficult to accustom themselves to rank 
men only according to a list decreed by the sovereign, and 
aristocratic prejudices still struggled vigorously against the 
policy of the Tsars. 

The list of the members of the Council of State, ap- 
pointed by Demetrius, has been preserved. It is written 
in the hand-writing of his secretary, John Buczinski, and in 
the Polish language, for the Tsar always made use of that 
idiom in the transaction of his most important affairs.* The 
title of this document is deserving of some attention. It is 
as follows : — List of the members, ecclesiastical and secular, 
of the Council of his Ccesarian Majesty. This was the first 
occasion on which Demetrius assumed the title of Csesar, and 
it would seem that he intentionally desired to take advantage 
of the confusion between the words Ccesar and Tsar, which, 
in the Slavonic languages, are almost identical in pronuncia- 
tion. The word Tsar is, in Russia, synonymous with that 
of king, or rather of prince, for this title was, even at this 
period, bestowed upon several Tartar chieftains, wbo were 
vassals of the sovereign of Russia. The grand-dukes or 
grand-princes of Muscovy assumed it themselves, and it 
was sometimes bestowed upon them by foreign powers as a 
national, and consequently unimportant, designation, This 
was not the case in reference to the title of Ccesar, which 
was identical with that of Emperor, and which had, until 
then, been reserved to the ruler of the German Empire. 
This innovation on the part of Demetrius, which might 
at first pass as an orthographical error, was a progress 

* This fact is all the more remarkable because it is often difficult to 
write a Eussian name in Roman letters, which are invariably used by 
the Poles. 



HIS GREAT OFFICERS OF STATE. 



119 



towards pretensions which we shall presently see displayed 
in their full extent. 

The great offices of State, giving admission and rank in 
the Council of the Empire, were granted either to boyards 
who had formerly been in favour during the reign of 
Ivan IV., or at the beginning of that of Feodor Ivanovitch, 
or to men who had played an active part in the last revolu- 
tion. Michael Nagoi, the soi-disant uncle of the Tsar, 
received the post of Master of the Horse, but not the 
immense authority and privileges which Boris had enjoyed 
under the same title. Basil Galitzin, whose conduct at 
Kromy and Moscow has been already related, was appointed 
Lord High Steward ; Bielsky became Grand Master of the 
Artillery ; Skopin Schuisky, Sword-bearer ; Poushkin, 
Grand Falconer ; Sotoupof, Keeper of the Seals ; Vlassief, 
Treasurer and Secretary of the Council. Most of these 
offices were new in Russia. Demetrius formed his court 
upon the model of that of Sigismund ; he was evidently 
acquainted with no other. In order to attach the public 
functionaries to his person, he increased their salaries. He 
doubled the pay of the army ; and, which appeared at that 
time an act of truly royal munificence, he announced that he 
would pay all the debts contracted by his father, Ivan IV. 
Neither Feodor nor Boris had thought of doing so: but, 
compelled by his position to profess respect for the memory 
of Ivan, Demetrius undertook all the responsibilities 
connected with his inheritance.* 

The great calamities which had weighed upon Russia 
during the last years of the reign of Boris, famine and civil 
war, had led to deep disturbance of the general state of 
society. A large number of peasants had abandoned their 
villages : some had entered the service of new masters, and 
others claimed to be free men. While authorising the 

* Gos. Gramoty, Letter of John Buczinski to Demetrius, vol. ii. p. 261. 
Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 283. 



120 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



proprietors to pursue and retake these fugitives, Demetrius 
strove by all means in bis power to ameliorate the condition 
of the peasants, and laid the foundations of that legislation 
which, unless I am greatly mistaken, still regulates serfdom 
in Russia. He enacted that liberty should be presumed, 
and that the master who reclaimed an individual as his serf, 
should be obliged judicially to establish his right of 
property. Further, starting from the principle that the 
lord owes effectual protection to his serf, and that by 
neglecting to exercise this protection, he loses his right as a 
master, the Tsar emancipated all the peasants who had been 
abandoned by their lords during the last years of the famine. 
Finally, he instituted severe punishment for all attempts 
upon the liberty of the subject, which, it would appear, 
were of frequent occurrence at this period. It often hap- 
pened, indeed, that free men, who had originally hired their 
service for a fixed period, were afterwards detained as serfs 
by the lords who had engaged them. Then, the position of 
the voluntary labourer was not clearly distinguished from 
that of the born serf. In future, the titles of all proprietors 
were to be set forth in registers placed under the inspection 
of the government.* 

It has already been stated, that in consequence of the 
inquiry into the Ooglitch catastrophe, the Tsarina, widow of 
Ivan the Terrible, had been constrained to take the veil, and 
banished by order of Boris to a monastery far remote from 
the capital. For nearly a month, Demetrius had been 
acknowledged throughout the Empire without the slightest 
opposition — he had established himself in the Kremlin, and 
yet his mother had not quitted her humble retreat ; he had 
not hastened to bring her back in triumph to Moscow. 
Murmurs began to arise at this singular behaviour. So 
long as Boris or his agents had published that the pretender 

* Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 284. Law of the Boyards in 1606, in the Guide 
des Lois Russes, vol. i. p. 129. 



HIS INTERVIEW WITH THE TSARIXA. 



121 



was an impostor, a fugitive monk, no one had been willing 
to believe a statement which appeared to be a calumny in- 
vented by hatred and terror. Now, however, the strange 
carelessness of Demetrius gave some likelihood to the 
accusation which was brought against him, and people 
began to say, that the Tsarina-nun, too certain of the death 
of her son, had refused to recognise the adventurer who had 
assumed his name. The Nagoi, it is true, had hastened to 
surround the new Tsar, and to profit by their relationship 
to him, but they were neither loved nor respected by any 
one ; whilst the misfortunes of the Tsarina, and the sacred 
character which she had adopted, constituted her an 
unimpeachable witness. 

All these secret accusations were soon to be solemnly 
disproved. It became known that the Tsar had summoned 
his mother from the convent at Vyksa in which she resided, 
and that he was going himself to Toininsk to meet her. 
According to all appearance, she had already received more 
than one message from her pretended son, and she had not 
received them unfavourably; but no explanation had yet 
taken place : Demetrius had imparted his secret to no one, 
and he relied upon himself alone to obtain the reception so 
necessary to the success of his projects. On the 18th of 
July, he left Moscow with great pomp, followed by an 
immense crowd, whose curiosity was excited to the highest 
degree, and who hoped to read in the countenances of the 
mother and son the solution of an enigma which absorbed the 
attention of all minds.* 

The Tsar was preceded by his sword-bearer, Michael 
Skopin Schuisky, and the choice of this messenger was a 
wise one, for he belonged to an honourable family, which 

* According to all appearance, the Nago'i, brothers of the Tsarina, had 
voluntarily ixndertaken to prepare her for an interview, and to poiut out 
to her all the advantages which would accrue to their family by favouring 
the imposture. 

G 



122 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



assuredly was better informed than any other of the fate of 
the true Demetrius. The impostor was resolved to force the 
Schuisky family to certify in every possible way his identity 
with the son of Ivan. Besides, his mission was merely one of 
etiquette, and he had only to announce to theTsarina the arri- 
val of her son, who had come to implore her motherly blessing.* 
Near the village of Toininsk a splendid tent had been 
prepared, and in this tent Demetrius received the widow of 
Ivan. They remained alone for a few moments, concealed 
from every eye ; what they said to each other, no one could 
know ; then they came out of the tent, and fell into each 
other's arms with all the marks of the most lively affection. 
At this sight, the multitude burst into acclamations on 
every side ; all doubt had disappeared in the general 
emotion, which is so easily communicable through large 
masses. The respect of the son, and the tenderness of the 
mother drew tears from the assembled crowd, and no one 
could then have been found who would not readily have 
sworn that the Tsar was indeed the son of the widow of 
Ivan.f Demetrius gave his hand to the princess, led her to 
the carriage which was to convey her to Moscow, and 
respectfully refused to ride in it by her side. During the 
greater part of the journey, he accompanied her on foot, 
walking at her carriage door, and speaking to her incessantly. 
On reaching the gates of the city, he mounted his horse and 
galloped forward to await her at the entrance to the Monas- 
tery of St. Cyril, in the Kremlin, which he had assigned to 
her as her residence until a magnificent convent should have 
been built expressly for her reception. Before they separated, 
they tenderly embraced one another again. All had been 
prepared, by his order, that she might be received with the 
honours due to the mother of the sovereign. She had an 
income and a household befitting her rank as Tsarina 

* Peyerle, p. 34 ; Baer, p. 61; Margeret, p. 125 ; Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 289. 
+ Baer, p. 61. 



CORONATION OF DEMETRIUS. 



123 



dowager. He visited her every day, and always with demon- 
strations of the deepest respect, and the most sincere 
affection.* It is said that he consulted her upon affairs of 
State, and his ukases were issued in the name of his mother 
and himself, t The incredulous were reduced to silence. 
Who would have dared to contradict the testimony of a 
Tsarina and a nun ? A few days after, Demetrius was 
crowned with great pomp in the Cathedral, and with the 
ceremonies already consecrated by both Feodor and Boris. 

But although, on such occasions, he observed the ancient 
etiquette of the Muscovite Court, his conduct and all his 
habits contrasted singularly with those of his predecessors. 
He was resolved to reign by himself, to know everything, 
to see everything with his own eyes. Basmanof, though 
always treated by him with the greatest distinction, and 
even with friendship, quickly perceived that it would not 
be easy to govern this young man of twenty-three years 
old, whose Mentor he had undoubtedly hoped to become. 
Demetrius would have neither favourite nor master. He 
was determined that all should bend to his will, and yet, 
despot though he was, he was fond of discussion, and 
allowed his boyards the most complete liberty to contradict 
him. He daily presided over his council; and his prodigious 
memory, his quickness of perception, and his penetration, 
confounded his ministers. They inquired where he could 
have gained such a thorough acquaintance with the state of 
his empire, its wants and its resources. Though tolerating 
and even inviting contradiction, he too frequently abused 
his superiority to rail pitilessly at adversaries whom he had 
convinced of mistake, or whom respect had reduced to 
silence. His pleasantries left wounds as deep as the insults 
of a capricious and unreasoning tyrant could have produced. 

* Baer, p. 61. 

+ It seems that such was then the general formula. We find it employed 
on the accession of Feodor Ivanovitch, and it was reproduced in the first 
ukases of Demetrius, dated from Toula. 

g 2 



124 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



Moreover, he too openly displayed a partial preference for 
foreign customs, which shocked the prejudices of the 
Muscovites. He was incessantly quoting the example of 
Poland, that ancient enemy of Russia, and extolling on 
every occasion the superiority of her laws and of her 
civilisation. " Travel, and gain instruction/* he would say 
to his boyards; " you are savages; you need the polish of 
education." These jests upon the ignorance of his subjects 
were never forgiven, for that ignorance, in the eyes of many 
persons, bore a sacred character, akin to that of the ancient 
religion and time-honoured customs of the country. 

When he entered Moscow, it was still a prey to the 
ravages of famine, and misery prevailed throughout the city. 
He succeeded in promptly remedying this sad state of 
things by wise regulations which, by encouraging commerce 
and the importation of food, soon produced abundance in 
the place of dearth. He also applied himself, from the 
very outset of his reign, to reforming the administration of 
justice, by setting bounds to the rapacity of the judges, and 
prohibiting the slowness of their proceedings. Following 
the example of many Tsars whose memory w T as cherished 
in the traditions of the people, he appeared every Sunday 
and Wednesday on the threshold of his palace, and there 
received all petitions with his own hands. He interrogated 
his petitioners with kindness, listened patiently to their 
statements, and frequently terminated with a single word 
an affair which had lasted for long years. If he found 
it necessary to reject a request, he did it with so much 
considerateness, that his obliging words gave almost as much 
satisfaction as if he had granted a favour. 

His indefatigable activity of mind and body astonished 
all his court, but the Muscovites, accustomed to the solemn 
etiquette of their Tsars, thought that he was sometimes 
wanting in dignity. For example, instead of going to 
church in a carriage, according to custom, he repaired thither 



CHARACTER OF DEMETRIUS. 



125 



on horseback, and frequently on a restive steed which he 
took delight in managing;. When Ivan, Feodor or Boris 
mounted on horseback (and that happened very rarely), a 
well-trained hackney was brought to them; one dignitary 
of the empire placed a stool, another held the stirrup; the 
Tsar was lifted into his saddle, and the whole affair was 
managed gravely and deliberately. Matters had now 
thoroughly changed. With the agility of a child of the 
steppes, Demetrius loved to ride a restive stallion ; with 
one hand he seized the mane of his horse, and leaped 
into his seat before his officers had time to discharge their 
respective duties. In former times, the Tsars never passed 
from one room into another, without being supported under 
the arms by several of their courtiers. They were guided 
and led about like children in leading-strings. All these 
tiresome ceremonies were now set aside. The new Tsar 
went out of his palace without informing any one, almost 
always without a guard, executing on the spur of the 
moment any thought that occurred to his mind. He walked 
on foot through the town, sometimes inspecting the works 
of a cannon-foundry which he had just established at 
Moscow, sometimes entering into the shops, chatting with 
the merchants, especially with foreigners, and displaying 
great curiosity to examine everything and become acquainted 
with the instruments and products of their industry. His 
chamberlains and body-guards frequently had to look for 
him in street after street, and found it extremely difficult 
to find him again. Whenever he heard of any new branch 
of industry, he immediately became desirous to introduce it 
into Russia, and made the most advantageous offers to 
skilful artisans and enlightened merchants in order to induce 
them to settle in his dominions. He was fond of the arts, 
and particularly of music. It is said that he was the first 
Tsar who took vocal and instrumental performers into his 
service. During his meals, symphonies were executed — a 



126 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



Polish fashion, then newly introduced, and regarded almost 
as scandalous by the Russians. Many persons would have 
preferred that he should have got drunk with his buffoons, 
like Ivan the Terrible, rather than that he should listen to 
German or Polish musicians. Contrary to the usage which 
was then general in Russia, he never indulged in the siesta 
after his meals ; he was always in motion. Even his diver- 
sions bore witness to his craving after activity. The most 
violent exercises were those which he preferred. Falconry 
and horse-racing were his means of relaxation after his 
labours in the cabinet. A bold and accomplished horseman, 
he took delight in breaking in the most unruly horses. One 
day at To'ininsk, it was resolved that a bear-fight, the 
favourite amusement of the nobility at that period, should 
be got up in his honour. A bear was caught in the woods 
and let loose again in a kind of arena, in which, huntsmen 
armed with pikes put him to death, or were themselves torn 
to pieces by the infuriated animal. The pacific Feodor 
Ivanovitch used to take great pleasure in these cruel 
spectacles. But Demetrius was not a man to look at such 
conflicts from the top of a balcony. Disregarding the 
entreaties of his courtiers, he went down alone into the 
arena, ordered an enormous bear to be let loose upon him, 
and killed him with a thrust of his boar-spear. * 

His skill in all warlike exercises, and his dashing intre- 
pidity, gained him the admiration of his soldiers, and 
especially of the Cossacks ; but the mass of the nation found 
it difficult to reconcile this restlessness and taste for useless 
dangers with the idea which they had formed to themselves 
of a Tsar of all the Russias. Scrupulous persons, in par- 
ticular, found much to complain of in his conduct, in all that 
regarded religious practices. He was inattentive at divine 
service, he frequently forgot to salute the holy images before 
taking his meals, and he sometimes rose abruptly from table, 

* Baer, p. 64. 



HIS RELIGIOUS FAILINGS. 



127 



without washing his hands. This was then considered 
the height of impiety. Another crime imputed to him was 
that he did not go regularly to the bath on Saturdays.* 
On the day of his coronation, one of the Polish Jesuits who 
had accompanied him paid him a compliment in Latin, which 
no one understood, and the Tsar, perhaps, as little as any 
one ; but the devotees had no doubt that the speech con- 
tained horrid blasphemies against the national religion, for 
all knew that Latin was the language of the Papists.f 
Sometimes, when speaking to Russian ecclesiastics, he used 
the expressions, " Your religion, your worship "% It was in- 
ferred from this that he had his own particular religion, which 
could be nothing else than the Latin heresy. At one of the 
sittings of the Imperial Council, it was represented to him that 
a proposition which he had just brought forward was con-, 
demned by the seventh oecumenical council, the last whose 
authority is recognised by the Greek Church. " Well," he 
replied, " what of that ? the eighth council may, very likely, 
come to a contrary decision on the matter." § What could 
have been his idea in uttering these imprudent words ? It 
may be that he was ignorant of this point in ecclesiastical 
history ; but, at all events, his words were regarded as an 
abominable blasphemy and an involuntary confession of 
Catholicism. It began to be whispered that this Tsar, so petu- 
lant, so full of contempt for ancient customs, might possibly 
not be a Russian, and that his orthodoxy was assuredly of a 
most suspicious character. As he loved magnificence, and 
affected to encourage the arts, he had caused to be placed at 
the door of a palace which he had just had built, a Cerberus in 
bronze, whose throat, says an annalist, gave forth a terrible 
noise whenever it was touched. This invention, the work- 
manship of some German mechanic, and which does small 



* Baer, p. 63 ; Platon, vol. ii. p. 156. 
f De Thou, lib. cxxxv. p. 55. J Platon, vol. ii. p. 156. 

§ Platon, vol. ii. p. 156. 



128 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



credit to the taste of Demetrius, appeared to the eyes of the 
people a piece of devilry, and a fit ensign for a wizards 
laboratory. The pious annalist, from whom I borrow this 
anecdote, echoing, probably, the remarks of the Muscovite 
monks, regards it as presaging the abode which awaited the 
Tsar in eternity — " hell and darkness.""* 

This love of the marvellous, and this belief in magic, then 
existed in almost all classes of society ; and in the rest of 
Europe, in this respect, there was no less superstition than 
in Russia. Although he was very devout, Boris maintained 
Finnish sorcerers in his service, and was regarded by many 
persons as a wizard himself. On his arrival at Moscow, 
Demetrius would not enter the palace of Boris, and even 
gave orders for its demolition, as an impious abode polluted 
by practices of witchcraft. f And it was related that the work- 
men found in a cellar a statue holding a lamp in its hand, 
constructed with such artifice that, at the expiration of a cer- 
tain time, calculated with reference to the quantity of oil 
which the lamp contained, the vase would break and let the 
lighted wick fall upon a great quantity of gunpowder which 
lay in heaps around the statue. This was an invention of 
Boris or his magicians to blow up Demetrius and all his 
court, whenever he came to occupy this palace. For- 
tunately, adds a grave historian, the mine was discovered 
before the time fixed for the explosion, and the statue was 
broken by order of the Tsar, to the regret, no doubt, of all 
future antiquaries. This story, which the illustrious De 
Thou has recorded in his annals, J was probably brought to 

* Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 297, repeats this uncharitable prediction with 
considerable complacency. Maskiewicz, who had visited the palace built 
by Demetrius, says that it was the finest in the Kremlin, and constructed 
in the Polish style : Maskiewicz, p. 68. 

+ According to Maskiewicz, it was the custom of all the Tsars to build 
a palace for themselves, at their accession, and never to inhabit that of 
their predecessor. It must be remembered that all these palaces were of 
wood. Maskiewicz, p. 68. 

+ De Thou, lib. 135, vol. vi. p. 333. 



HIS IMPRUDENT CONDUCT. 



129 



him from Russia by Captain Margeret. I have repeated it 
because I thought that it might give an idea of the super- 
stitions of the period. 

The distrust and discontent of the zealots continued to 
increase, and were furnished with a still more plausible 
motive when it became known that Demetrius intended to 
espouse Marina Mniszek, and that the Secretary of the 
Council, Afanassi Vlassief, was about to proceed to Poland 
with magnificent presents for the bride. A Latin woman 
on the throne of Russia! an unbaptised Polish girl for 
Tsarina ! This was more than enough to revolt all orthodox 
consciences. The priests and monks surpassed all others in 
their active efforts to diffuse among the people all the calum- 
nious or exaggerated rumours which might cast doubt either 
upon the faith of the Tsar, or upon his rights to the throne 
of Ivan. In their discourses they compared him to Julian 
the Apostate, and all the truly royal qualities which they 
were compelled to recognise in Demetrius only became new 
features of resemblance to the persecutor of the Christians.* 

Demetrius served the malicious designs of his enemies by 
his imprudent conduct; and his very efforts to render him- 
self agreeable to the Russians turned fatally to his disad- 
vantage. As soon as he was installed in the Kremlin, he 
dismissed his Polish body-guard, in order to give public 
proof of his confidence in the fidelity of the Muscovites. 
But he could not forget that the soldiers whom he was dis- 
banding had connected themselves with his fortune at a 
time when it seemed desperate, when Mniszek and the 
Palatines had abandoned him before Novgorod. He loaded 
them with presents, and continued to treat them with the 
consideration due to such faithful servants. He allowed 
them free access to his person at every hour, and never 
addressed them except as comrades. Proud of this dis- 
tinction, the Poles, in their dealings with the Russians, 

* Platon, vol. ii. p. 147. 

g 3 




130 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



assumed airs of superiority which deeply wounded the 
national vanity.* 

A usurper stands in need of glory, and is, as it were, under 
the necessity of becoming a conqueror. The great project 
of Demetrius was that conceived by Stephen Battory ; he 
aimed at uniting all the strength of the Slavonic race in 
order to turn it against the Turks and Tartars. He began 
to labour at this design the very day after his arrival at 
Moscow. The aggrandisement of his dominions, immense 
glory for himself, and thorough consolidation of his 
authority, were the results which he hoped to derive from 
this mighty undertaking. But it was fraught with many 
dangers, the most considerable of which were not the 
chances of war. In order to form the coalition whose 
chieftain he aspired to become, Demetrius was obliged to 
act with great circumspection towards the King of Poland 
and the Pope.t With the Holy See especially, he had a 
difficult part to perform. While in Poland, he had promised 
the conversion of his subjects, and had become a Catholic 
himself ; at Moscow, he was obliged to amuse the Pope by 
an affectation of zeal for the interests of the Latin Church, 
and at the same time carefully to conceal his change of 
creed from his subjects, who were already too much disposed 
to doubt his orthodoxy. Hence arose a difficult and com- 
promising correspondence with Rome, where no adequate 
idea was entertained of the obstacles against which he had 
to contend. His military preparations, on the other hand, 
necessitated very large expenditure. When he found himself in 
want of money, he had recourse to the means which appeared 
to him most expeditious. Like Charles Martel, he thought 

* Gos. Gramoty, Letter of John Buczinski to Demetrius, vol. ii. p. 258 ; 
Lubienski, p. 71. 

+ See the Correspondence of Demetrius with Pope Paul V., and that of 
Cardinal Borghese with Claud io Rangoni, the Pope's nuncio in Poland : 
Tourghenief, Historica Russia? Monimeuta, vol. ii. 



HIS ECCLESIASTICAL REFORMS. 



131 



himself entitled to impose upon the clergy a portion of the 
expenses of an expedition which had for its object the glory 
and triumph of Christianity. He determined to make him- 
self exactly acquainted with the revenues of the numerous 
monasteries in his empire, and loudly delared that he saw 
no reason why so many lazy monks should live in abundance, 
whilst part of Christendom still remained subject to the 
Mussulman yoke. Reforms, and, with them, confiscations 
began. Several convents were suppressed, and great reduc- 
tions in their temporal revenues were announced for the 
future. Finally the Tsar, desirous to have near him all 
the members of his household, and particularly his foreign 
musicians, turned out the monks from the convents of Arbat 
and Tchertol, which stood near his palace, in order to enlarge 
its dependencies.* 

At all times, and in all countries, the monks have taken 
fierce revenge for all aggressions upon their temporal 
property. The last decrees of Demetrius exasperated their 
minds to the highest degree, and a conspiracy was formed to 
dethrone the new Julian. Several boyards joined in the 
plot, and among these were some of the men who had 
shown the greatest readiness to desert the cause of Boris. 
In reality, most of the Russian nobles had cared very little 
whether Demetrius was or was not the legitimate heir of 
Ivan the Terrible, and had merely asked to be delivered 
from a despot against whom they were themselves afraid to 
rebel. When Boris was dead, each thought the moment had 
come for a division of the spoil. Each one hoped to govern 
the empire to his own advantage, and in the name of that 
still unknown Tsar whom Heaven had sent them as their 
liberator. Some would have been satisfied with the post of 
Regent, or even of favourite ; others, envious witnesses of 
the high fortune of Boris, and the incredible success of 
Demetrius, aimed at nothing less than placing upon their 



Baer, p. 67. 



132 DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 

own beads a crown which, in so short a time, had so frequently 
changed its masters. The new Tsar had frustrated all these 
various ambitions. He was not a faineant king like Feodor, 
but a despot as absolute as Boris, though fortunately more 
gentle, less suspicious and less prudent. He had at once 
dismissed the numerous spies whom his predecessor had 
maintained with such exceeding care. To overthrow him 
whilst he was still insecurely established on his throne, 
seemed an easy matter with the assistance of the clergy and 
of the fanatical populace. Finally, in case of failure, they 
still reckoned, perhaps, on his clemency and mildness, which 
at that rude Court were regarded rather as an indication of 
his weakness than of his greatness of soul. 

The ablest and most influential of the conspirators was 
the boyard Basil Schuisky, who had presided over the 
Ooglitch inquiry, and whom we have seen attesting and 
denying by turns the death of young Demetrius. Suspected 
by Boris, perhaps because he was the master of a terrible 
secret, or perhaps merely on account of his illustrious birth 
and immense wealth, he had joined the party of the 
conqueror without any excessive haste, but in time enough 
to obtain an exalted rank, and the good graces of the new 
ruler, who regarded him with favour, because of the incessant 
persecutions to which he had been subjected under the 
previous reign. But Schuisky's ambition was boundless ; 
though he had not contended with Boris for the throne, he 
believed himself the only person worthy of it, for he claimed 
to be the nearest descendant of the race of Burik. Bold in 
his plans, he was timid in executing them, although by no 
means scrupulous as to the means of attaining his object. 
As soon as he became aware of the growing hatred of the 
Muscovites to Demetrius, he clearly perceived that if he did 
not place himself at the head of the malcontents, he would 
leave to another the fruits of the revolution which was on 
the point of breaking out. Divided between his ambition 



CONSPIRACY OF SCHUISKY. 



133 



and his natural eircumspectness, he found himself at length 
compelled to take a decided part in the affair, and his co- 
operation brought such an amount of strength to the con- 
spiracy, that he immediately became its acknowledged head. 
He had an immense number of dependents among the 
people of the capital, and, in regard to orthodoxy and 
attachment to old customs, he was a true Russian of the 
ancient race. " To work ! " he said to the disaffected : " the 
evil weighs upon our shoulders." * He would, however, 
do nothing hastily, and in accordance with his usual policy, 
he hoped to be able to restrain the swelling tempest until it 
should have become perfectly irresistible, This crisis, in 
his opinion, would be on the arrival of Marina in Moscow, 
which could not fail to impart redoubled energy to the 
popular indignation. The presence of an infidel Tsarina 
and of the numerous foreigners whom she would bring in 
her train, would arouse the old national animosities of the 
Muscovites, and arm the entire people against the enemy of 
the true faith. It is also said that, believing himself 
infallibly appointed to become the successor of the impostor, 
he was desirous that the pearls and diamonds amassed by 
Ivan and Boris, which Demetrius had sent into Poland as a 
present to his bride, should be brought back into Russia. 
These jewels, of inestimable value, would have been lost to 
him and to the empire, if the revolt had broken out before 
the arrival of Marina. t 

But, whatever care Schuisky took to conceal his plots, he 
could not impose equal prudence on all his accomplices. The 
conspirators gained recruits from all classes, and even among 
the Strelitz, who were thought to be sincerely devoted to 
the Tsar. The secret was not long kept ; the boasts and 
indiscretions of the subalterns led to the frustration of the 
plot long before it had reached maturity. A few soldiers 

* " Pora za dielo, beda za pletchami ; " Baer, p. 67. 
+ Kararazin, vol. xi v p. 335. 



134 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



and obscure priests were first of all arrested, and under the 
bastinado they denounced their chief. Demetrius pardoned 
the ecclesiastics from policy, or perhaps from contempt. 
Towards the soldiers he acted with greater severity ; he 
passed the Strelitz in review, and complained bitterly of 
their treason. " Show me the traitors/' cried Gregory 
Mikoulin, the colonel of the guards ; " they shall not 
merely have their throats cut ; I will myself tear out their 
bowels with my own teeth." * The Tsar then mentioned 
the most guilty, and declared that he pardoned their 
accomplices, on condition that they proved their repentance 
by punishing the wretches who had led them astray. The 
Strelitz immediately fell upon these unhappy men, and cut 
them in pieces with their sabres with such fury, that the 
executioners wounded each other in their vehement anxiety 
to strike their victims.! 

Demetrius proceeded in a less summary manner towards 
Schuisky, who had been denounced to him as the leader of 
the plot : he had him brought into his presence, charged 
him with his crime, and, having taken the advice of the 
Council of Boyards, ordered him to be flogged, and pro- 
nounced sentence of death against him. He was led to the 
place of execution in front of the palace ; there a scribe 
read his sentence ; the executioner stripped him of his 
caftan, and made him kneel before the block. Already he 
was brandishing his axe, when an officer ran up, waving a 
paper above his head. " Stop ! " he cried to the execu- 
tioner. The officer then came up, ascended the scaffold, 
and "delivered an imperial cedule to the ministers of justice. 
The Tsar, using his accustomed clemency, granted life to 
the culprit, " in consideration of his birth, and on condition 
that he should never take part in any new rebellion." At 
the same time, it was reported among the people, that the 

* Gos. Gramoty, Examination of Buczinski, vol. ii., p. 297. 
f Ibid. ; Petre'ius, p. 324. 



PUNISHMENT OF SCHUISKY. 



135 



Tsar had pardoned the chief of the conspirators, at the 
solicitation of the Poles. The Tsarina-mother, it was said, 
had, at their urgent entreaty, interceded for the prisoner. 
Basil Schuisky, after having promised all that was required 
of him, mounted a chariot, which was to convey him to 
Siberia. But such was not yet the termination of the 
comedy, which had, in all probability, been prepared before- 
hand by Demetrius ; a courier overtook the exile on his 
journey, after he had travelled some distance, and brought 
him back to the capital, where his pardon, this time com- 
plete, awaited him. The Tsar restored to him his property, 
and even his rank and place in the imperial council ; 
thinking, doubtless, that so many humiliations, stripes, and 
imminent agonies of decapitation, had gained him a faithful 
subject.* He flattered himself that he had reconciled the 
Muscovites and the Poles, by ascribing to the latter the 
merit of having interceded on behalf of an illustrious repre- 
sentative of the Russian nobility. Demetrius was not cruel ; 
he was even endowed with a natural gentleness rarely met 
with at the period in which he lived, and perhaps somewhat 
out of place in a usurper ; for it is the punishment of those 
who attain power by violence, that they can only maintain 
their possession of it by means of terror. 

But if we must not ascribe the clemency of Demetrius to 
this incompleteness of his character, we may suppose him 
to have been actuated by purely political motives. By 
putting to death the president of the Ooglitch inquiry, he 
might furnish grounds for the assertion that he was anxious 
to get rid of a troublesome witness. By pardoning him, on 
the contrary, he would prove that he had nothing to fear 
from his revelations. Besides, he flattered himself that 
either gratitude or terror would induce Schuisky to confirm 
the disavowal which he had already made of the death of 
the Tsarevitch. Oaths cost Schuisky nothing, and his 



Baer, p. 68 ; Margeret, p. 128. 



136 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



contradictions, it would seem, did not then obtain for him 
that contempt which they would occasion at the present day. 
He reappeared at court without much embarrassment, dis- 
armed suspicion by an affectation of humility, and, mean- 
while, passing for a martyr among the disaffected, he 
continued to direct their proceedings with greater authority 
than ever. 

For from advising him to spare Schuisky, the most pru- 
dent of the Poles, and those most attached to the person of 
Demetrius, advised him to keep him, as well as the Godou- 
nofs, in perpetual imprisonment. " These people," said his 
secretary John Buczinski, " will force you to repent of your 
clemency, if you restore them to liberty." " No," replied 
Demetrius ; " I have sworn not to shed Christian blood, and 
I will keep my oath. Believe me, there are two methods of 
governing an empire. By terror? . . . but 1 have no wish 
to be a tyrant. By generosity ? . . . I will not be sparing 
of money; I will give to all." * This language is almost 
word for word the same as that used by Csesar to his con- 
fidants, when he had in a few days made himself master of 
Italy. f Neither Caesar nor Demetrius disarmed their ene- 
mies by their clemency; but posterity will not confound 
them with those paltry tyrants who have died in their beds. 

This liberality, which Demetrius thus adopted as his sys- 
tem of government, exhausted his resources even more 
quickly than his military preparations had done ; for he 
rejected no applications. When the old servants of Ivan 
presented him with their accounts, he granted them the 
double of what was due to them. J He wished that all who 

* Gos. Gramoty, Letter from Buczinski to Demetrius, vol. ii., p. 261. 

+ " Tentenms hoc modo si possumus omnium voluntatem recuperare et 
diuturna victoria uti ; quoniam reliqui crudelitate odium effugere non 
potuerunt, neque victoriam diutius tenere, praeter unum L. Sullam, quern 
imitaturus non sum. Haec nova sit ratio vincendi : et miser icordia et 
liberalitate nos muniamus." — Letter from Caesar to Oppius and Balbus : 
Cic. ad. Att. ix v p. 8. 

X Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii., p. 261. 



HIS LAVISH GENEROSITY. 



137 



approached him should depart with joyful hearts. Poles, 
Germans, and Muscovites, all were liberally supplied from 
the Imperial treasury. Until then, the sovereigns of Russia 
had made it a law, and almost a point of honour, to amass a 
treasure, and to add it to the deposit which they had 
received from their predecessors. By the mass of the 
nation, this usage, borrowed from the Tartar Sultans, was 
regarded as the ne plus ultra of political ability; the pro- 
fuse generosity of Demetrius was therefore severely blamed 
by his contemporaries, and considered an enormous fault, if 
not an act of treason. To dissipate the treasure of the 
Kremlin, was, as it were, to betray the Empire without 
resources into the hands of its enemies.* 

* " Sed nihil magis Moschos in eum accendit, quam qixod a multis retro 
saeculis sacro et intacto Moschovise principum serario manus admoverit." — 
Lubienski, Opera Posthuma, p. 37. 



138 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



RELATIONS OF DEMETRIUS WITH POLAND. — HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE 
POPE. — HIS MISTRESS XENIA. — REMONSTRANCES OP MNISZEK. — DEME- 
TRIUS SENDS AN EMBASSY TO CRACOW TO DEMAND THE HAND OP 
MARINA. — TREATMENT OF HIS AMBASSADORS. — HIS MARRIAGE BY 
PROXY. — JOURNEY OF MARINA TO RUSSIA. 

A very short time after his coronation, Demetrius had 
sent into Poland his treasurer Vlassief, followed closely by 
his confidential secretary, John Buczinski, with instructions 
to conclude his proposed marriage with Marina Mniszek, 
and to induce King Sigismund to combine with him in a 
war against the Turks and Tartars. They were, more- 
over, to endeavour, by all possible means, to obtain the 
Polish monarch's recognition of the title of Caesar or 
Emperor, which Demetrius had just assumed. 

For some time, the relations between the two princes had 
been marked by considerable coolness. Sigismund regarded 
this new title as a pretension which would be injurious to the 
other sovereigns of Europe, and especially to himself. It 
was not without a certain feeling of jealousy that he had 
learned the astonishing good-fortune of a man who had 
recently begged his protection and assistance. He was 
irritated at seeing that he had become his equal, and he 
accused him of ingratitude because of the want of eagerness 
which Demetrius had manifested to espouse his quarrel 
with Sweden. In fact, when Gonciewski, a Polish ambas- 
sador, had pressed the Tsar to declare openly against the 
Duke of Sudermania, who had assumed the title of 



HIS RELATIONS WITH POLAND. 



139 



Charles IX., he had received only an evasive answer. He 
had been equally unsuccessful in his complaint that Gustavus 
Ericsen was still treated as a prince, and that Demetrius 
had continued to pay the pension which Boris had granted 
him. These remonstrances were accompanied by a secret 
communication of the most extraordinary character. " The 
King," said Sigismund's ambassador to Demetrius, " is 
informed by a most trust worth y authority that Boris is 
still living. Despairing of being able to defend himself in 
Moscow, and in obedience to a prediction of his soothsayers, 
he secretly quitted Russia to repair to England, whither he 
has conveyed considerable sums." This news was so absurd 
that it seemed probable that, whilst advising his ally to 
keep upon his guard, Sigismund's real aim was to terrify 
and threaten him, as it were, with the same weapons which 
Demetrius had recently employed with such success. To 
resuscitate Boris was to rekindle civil war in Russia. It is 
probable that Demetrius interpreted this singular story in 
this way ; for he replied to Sigismund with some asperity 
that, before claiming a service in the name of their friend- 
ship, he ought first of all to have proved his own sincerity 
by a recognition of the title of Caesar.* 

Such were the diplomatic relations between the two 
sovereigns. I do not, however, find in their negotiations 
the slightest allusion to the cession of the principality of 
Smolensko_, which had been agreed to by Demetrius during 
his residence in Poland. Must we suppose that a treaty, 

* Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii., pp. 213, 217; Secret note delivered by 
Gonciewski and answer of Demetrius. We find, however, in the Archives 
of the Vatican, a letter from Demetrius to the Duke of Sudermania, in 
which, after having notified to him his accession, the Tsar summons him 
to abdicate his title of King, and to yield the throne to Sigismund, his 
ally. It is probable that this letter was never sent to the Duke of Siider- 
mania, and that Demetrius merely offered to send it, in case Sigismund would 
recognise his new title. The Court of Rome was to interfere in the nego- 
tiation. See Tourghenief, Historica Russise Monimenta, vol. ii., p. 82. 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



which has remained unknown, postponed this cession to an 
epoch more or less remote ? or that the act itself was kept 
secret in the hands of Mniszek, as a means of influencing 
his future son-in-law ? * On this point, indeed, Demetrius 
would not have been wanting in pretexts for refusing to 
keep his promises, for the conduct of the Poles, who had 
abandoned him in the very midst of the expedition, 
undoubtedly dispensed him from observing engagements 
which his allies had been the first to infringe. As for the 
profession of Catholicism, which had been required from 
him during the previous year, it was passed over with 
equal silence. It is true that, in the correspondence which 
Pope Paul V. and Bishop Rangoni, his legate in Poland, 
carried on at this period with Demetrius, frequent allusions 
occur to his change of creed and to his zeal for the faith, 
but at the same time very little anxiety is displayed to 
obtain a public declaration of his conversion. f The legate 
himself readily consented to solicit from the Holy See all 
the concessions which were required in order not to wound 
the religious susceptibilities of the Russians, and to keep 
them as long as possible in error with regard to the 
orthodoxy of the Tsar. J It is true that Demetrius had 
always treated with distinction the Polish Jesuits who had 

* The cession of a part of the principality of Sinolensko to the King of 
Poland was perhaps introduced by Mniszek into his treaty with Demetrius, 
only in order to obtain for himself permission to accept the suzerainty 
which his son-in-law had bestowed upon him. Now, Mniszek might have 
kept this clause secret until the moment had come for demanding its 
execution. Or, perhaps, this clause was made subordinate to the marriage 
of Marina to the Tsar. 

t The legate Rangoni expresses himself with great reserve on this subj ect. 
He recommends the Tsar to read, in a Latin Bible which he had sent him, 
the ninth and tenth chapters of Exodus, and the seventh chapter of the 
Second Book of Kings, in which Moses threatens Pharaoh, and Nathan 
commands David to build the Temple. — Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii., p. 218. 

X " N.S. gli da facolta di dispensare quanto alle nozze del Gran Duca, 
in evento che si dovessero celebrare nel tempo della quaresima, e lo avvisi 
anco ad eseguirle senza atto publico, ma segretamente, in foro conscientia 



HIS ACTS OF TOLERATION. 



141 



accompanied him in his campaign, and followed him to 
Moscow. He had even granted them a then unprecedented 
favour, the cession of a considerable space within the sacred 
enclosure of the Kremlin, with permission to build a 
Catholic Church, and to celebrate the Romish service 
therein.* But soon afterwards he treated the German 
Reformers with equal benignity, for they obtained leave 
to erect a Lutheran chapel not far from the palace, f 
Whether these concessions, which were far from being 
agreeable to the Russians, were acts of toleration or of 
policy on the part of Demetrius, they certainly did not 
indicate his intention to compel his subjects to change their 
creed ; and it is evident that, upon this point, as well as in 
reference to the cession of some of his provinces, he was by 
no means careful to fulfil his promises. 

It is difficult to understand why, though as unscrupulous 
as most adventurers, Demetrius persisted in his determi- 
tion to espouse a Catholic Pole, although he was well aware 
that such an union would be highly distasteful to his people. 
When compelled to solicit the assistance of the Palatines of 
Lithuania by all means in his power, it was not surprising 
that he eagerly sought to ally himself with Mniszek; but 
now that he was seated upon the throne of the Tsars, such 
an alliance could not be otherwise than prejudicial to his 
interests. Yet he was the first to remember his promise, 
and as soon as he had been crowned at Moscow, he sent to 

che tanto basta." Letter from Cardinal Borghese to Rangoni, December 
24, 1605. — " N. S. ha date ordine clie si vedono li punti sopra li quali 
Demetrio domanda risolutione, e si fara straordinaria diligenza per inviare 
la risposta quanto prima. In tanto ha fatto bene V. S. ad esortare la 
Gran Duchessa a conservarsi nel rito latino, per che se non si potia compiacer 
Demetrio, lei ancora mentre si mostrera renitente, giustifichera tanto piu 
la causa." From the same to the same ; in Tourghenief 's Historica Russise 
Monimenta, vol. ii., pp. 80, 85. 

* Letter from Neri Giraldi to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, October 22, 
1605 Esame Critico,p. 58. Platon, vol ii., p. 155. 

t Baer, p. 77. 



142 DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 

invite Marina to share his throne. When he signed the 
promise of marriage in Poland, he was, doubtless, under the 
influence of Marina's charms, but at Moscow we cannot 
ascribe his impatience to conclude the projected union to 
the eagerness of love. For whilst Vlassief, bearing mag- 
nificent presents for the bride and all her family, was on his 
way to Cracow to hasten their departure for Russia, the 
Tsar had an acknowledged mistress, who resided with him 
in the Kremlin, and this mistress was no other than the 
daughter of Boris. 

44 Xenia," writes' a contemporary author, 44 was a girl of 
the greatest intelligence: her complexion was pink and white, 
and her black eyes sparkled with vivacity. When grief 
caused her to shed tears, they shone with a still greater 
radiance. Her eyebrows joined ; her body was formed with 
perfect symmetry, and was so white that it seemed to have 
been moulded with cream. She was an accomplished person, 
speaking more elegantly than a book. Her voice was 
melodious, and it was a real pleasure to hear her sing songs. v * 
This beauty was fatal to Xenia. After witnessing the death 
of her mother and brother, she took refuge first of all in a 
convent, or, according to some annalists, she found an asylum 
in the house of Prince Mstislavski. Soon after she entered 
the palace of the enemy of her family, and for some months 
she was the favourite mistress of the Tsar. It was probably to 
her influence that several of the Godounofs were indebted for 
their lives, and even for some degree of favour. Whether she 
yielded to seduction, or to violence, as some modern authors 
have asserted, it is impossible to discover at the present 
day. It is no less impossible to decide whether Demetrius 

* Koubasof, Rousskiia Dostopamiatnosti, vol. i., p. 174. It will be 
remarked that the ideas of the Russians at this period with regard to 
beauty were purely Oriental. Joined eyebrows are so highly appreciated 
that, at the present day, the Turkish and Armenian women make them so 
by means of a paint-brush. 



HIS MISTRESS XENIA. 



143 



allowed himself to be subdued by the charms of his captive, 
or whether, like a pitiless conqueror, he sacrificed her to his 
arrogant vanity, and desired, with a refinement of vengeance, 
to inflict the greatest dishonour on his enemy's family. At 
all events, it appears certain that, for some time, Xenia 
exercised such marked influence over him, that Mniszek grew 
alarmed, and seriously remonstrated with the Tsar."* It 
was only when Marina was actually on her way to Mos- 
cow that Demetrius dismissed his captive. He sent her 
into a monastery, according to the usage of the time. She 
took the vows in the convent of St, Sergius, at Moscow, 
under the name of Olga, and died there in 1622. f 

These singular amours, this fidelity to his engagements in 
the midst of inconstancy, and even of debauchery, this bold- 
ness in attempting a desperate enterprise, this imperturbable 
coolness in maintaining an audacious imposture, this grace- 
fulness in acting the part of a legitimate monarch, so many 
brilliant qualities united with puerile vanity and the most 
imprudent levity — such are the contrasts presented by the 
character of Demetrius, and which are perhaps explicable 
by his extreme youth and his adventurer's education. 
Nothing, however, is more rare than a character, all the parts 
of which are in perfect harmony. Contradiction is the cha- 
racteristic of most men, and there are very few whose life 
corresponds to the projects which they have formed, or to 
the hopes to which they have given rise. Who can say 
that the pleasure of exhibiting himself in all the splendour 

* G03. Gramoty, vol. ii., p. 243. Letter from Mniszek to Demetrius, 
December 25, 1605. — " My sincere love for your Imperial Majesty, and my 
attachment to you, who are a son given me by God, compel me to beseech 
you to act with greater circumspectness. It is known that the Tsarevna, 
daughter of Boris, lives with you. Permit me to beg you to take on this 
subject the advice of persons who are devoted to you, and to remove her 
from your company. Deign to remember that the world notices the 
slightest weakness in princes, and that it takes occasion thereby to lose its 
respect for them." 

t Platon, vol. ii., p. Hi. 



144 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



of his high fortune before the eyes of those who had wit- 
nessed his poverty, had not the greatest share in the reso- 
lutions of Demetrius ? Mniszek and M arina were probably 
the first persons whose esteem appeared precious to him. 
To obtain the approbation of a few Polish Palatines, he 
risked his crown ; but does not every man believe that the 
world's opinion is that of the little circle in which he is 
accustomed to move ? 

The envoys of Demetrius found the Court of Cracow even 
more unfavourably disposed towards their master than they 
had anticipated. Some were indignant at the excessive pride 
of the Grand Duke of Muscovy, who had dared to usurp 
the titles of Ctesar and Imperator ; others jested pitilessly 
on the protocol of his letters, in which he had applied to 
himself the epithet of invictissimus ; others again ascribed 
to him the most perfidious projects, and declared that his 
armaments were not directed against the Turk, but against 
Livonia, which he was anxious to recover from Poland."* 
At the head of the cabal which was formed against Demetrius 
were the Palatine of Posnania and the Chancellor of 
Lithuania.f These two personages — whether they were in 
correspondence with the malcontents in Russia, or whether 
among the persons attached to the embassy of Demetrius 
there were traitors who informed them of the state of mind 
of the people at Moscow, — gave currency at the Court of 
Sigismund to the most untoward reports regarding the new 
Tsar, and assured their sovereign that Russia was already 
weary of the yoke of an impostor, and ready to throw her- 
self into the arms of a prince, even though a foreigner, who 
would deliver her from her tyrant. It is possible, but very 
doubtful, that, even at this period, some boyards had thought 

* Gos. Gramoty, Letter from J. Buczinski to Demetrius, vol. ii., p. 258, 
et seq. Letter from Mniszek to Demetrius ; Ibid. p. 244. 

+ Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii., p. 259. Zolkiewski MSS., p. 17. Karamzin, 
vol. xL, p. 176. 



HIS EMBASSY TO CRACOW. 



145 



of applying to Poland for a Tsar, and had fixed their eyes 
on young Ladislaus, the son of Sigismund. At all events, 
the king by no means encouraged these singular overtures, 
but he permitted jeers and direct attacks upon the preten- 
sions of Demetrius.*" 

He gave a courteous reception to the families of those 
Polish or Lithuanian gentlemen who had taken part in the 
expedition against Boris, and who complained that their 
services had not been adequately rewarded ; he promised 
to interfere in their favour, and bitterly reproached the 
Muscovite ambassadors that such faithful servants had 
been neglected. In the midst of a court so unfavourably 
disposed to the new Tsar, Mniszek found himself placed in 
a very difficult position, and was at a loss how to reply to 
the accusations of his fellow-countrymen. Persecuted by 
his creditors, and hard pressed by the King himself, who 
had advanced him considerable sums, he extolled in vain 
the power of his son-in-law, for he could not obtain credit 
from the merchants. f On the other hand, the Russian 
ambassador, Vlassief, offended the palatines, and even 
Mniszek himself, by his haughty bearing. Fortunately, 
however, the more delicate negociations had not been 

* "Schuisky had the art to send into Poland, to the court of Sigismund, 
Bezobrazof, who was his confidant. This man, after having paid his official 
compliments to the king, requested permission to speak secretly with the 
Chancellor of Lithuania, which was refused him. Then he addressed 
himself to Gonciewski, and revealed to him, on behalf of the Schuiskys 
and Galitzins, that Demetrius was execrated ; that he would soon be hurled 
from the throne ; and that they wished to make Prince Ladislaus his 
successor. The King replied secretly to the boyards, that he was giieved 
to hear of the condition of Russia; that, for himself, he would put no 
obstacle in the way of their plans ; but as for his son Ladislaus, he hoped 
he would be satisfied with his position, and resign himself to the will of 
Providence . . . All these communications were carried on through the 
Chancellor of Lithuania." Zolkiewski MSS., p. 15 — 17. To all appearance, 
Zolkiewski either confounds two different periods, or attempts to exculpate 
his master from the war undertaken against Russia at a later date. 

+ Gos. Gramoty, Letter from Mniszek to the Tsar, vol. ii. p. 241, 
et seq. 

H 



146 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



entrusted to his management. John Buczinski. the con- 
fidential secretary of Demetrius, arrived very opportunely, 
bearing a large sum of money for Mniszek, and a formal 
promise from the Tsar to be his surety with Sigismund, 
who appears to have been a very impatient creditor.* 
Buczinski was a man of versatile talents, and a mind fertile 
in expedients. Himself a Pole, he was better able than 
any one else to plead the cause of the Tsar with his country- 
men, and to penetrate the intrigues which were in progress 
against him. Demetrius had also another advocate at the 
Court of Sigismund, Count Alexander Rangoni, nephew of 
the apostolic legate in Poland. This nobleman had just 
returned from Moscow, whither he had been sent by the 
Holy See to congratulate the new Tsar on his accession, 
and probably to obtain from him promises favourable to 
the Catholic cause. The Tsar, in return, reckoned upon 
his good offices, and the intervention of the nuncio, to over- 
come the opposition of Sigismund. " By refusing to give 
me the title of Cassar," writes Demetrius in a confidential 
letter to Count Alexander, " the King encourages the evil 
dispositions of some of my subjects. Already it is suspected 
that I have undertaken to cede to him some of my provinces, 
and it would be equally dangerous to him and to myself for 
this part of our treaties to become known, before the com- 
plete restoration of tranquillity in my dominions. I will 
give entire satisfaction to the King by my conduct towards 
the princes of Sweden ; as for the question of the title 
which I have assumed, it shall never be a cause of war 
between us ; but I appeal to his brotherly friendship, and 
ask this of him as a personal service." f 

* Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 242. 
+ Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 226. It will be seen that the Pope favoured 
the pretensions of Demetrius, and that he confounded the titles of Tsar and 
Caesar: — "Si V.S. crede che l'intercessione diN. S.,possapersuaderea cotesta 
Maesta (Sigismundo) a compiacere a Demetrio del titolo di Czar, da lui 
tanto desiderate, e che la Maesta sua non abbia a sentire un minimo 



PREPARATIONS FOR HIS MARRIAGE. 



147 



In marrying a Catholic, the Tsar did not conceal from 
himself that he was violently shocking the religious pre- 
judices of his subjects, but he hoped to be able to appease 
their indignation by means of a few empty demonstrations 
which, in his opinion, would be sufficient to impose upon the 
public, and to prove his respect for the national customs. 
Buczinski had received from him the most minute instruc- 
tions to make Marina well acquainted with the conduct she 
would have to pursue on her arrival in Russia. Entering 
into all the details of etiquette, Demetrius enjoined his 
wife not to allow her hair to be seen, for it was then a 
scandal for a married woman to appear without a fantastic 
head-dress, called Kakoshnik, which is still in use at the 
present day among the Russian peasant-women.* He sent 
her a supply of chains and embroidered pocket-handker- 
chiefs, to give as presents to the boyards who would come 
to pay their respects to her on her journey ; and also a 
quantity of bracelets and rings for their wives.f No part 
of the ceremonial which was to be observed in the official 
receptions was forgotten. (< When the Tsarina is presented 
to me" wrote Demetrius to Buczinski, " I shall take her 
hand as if to kiss it, but she will be careful not to permit 
me to do so, and immediately after, his Excellency, the 
Voyvode (Mniszek), will kiss my hand." J 

This comedy was not difficult to perform ; but Demetrius 

disgusto dell' offizio, si contenta la Santita sua, che lei ne ti'atti, presup- 
ponendo sempre che con tal mezzo si possa render piu pronto quel Gran 
Duca ad aiutare cotesto regno contra il Tartaro. Circa il dar nuovi 
titoli a Demetrio non si risolvera cosa che possa dispicere a S. M. e si fara 
diligenza per vedere se il nome di Czar e uscito dalla secretaria a tempo di 
Papa Clemente VIII. di santa memoria, come a lei pare." — Letter from 
Cardinal Borghese to Rangoni, March 4, 1606 ; Tourghenief, Historica 
Bussise Monimenta, vol. ii. p. 86. 

* Gos. Gramoty, Note to Buczinski, vol. ii. p. 229. The Kalcoshnik 
forms part of the actual court costume of the present day. 

+ Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 230. 

X Ibid. 

H 2 



us 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



not only desired to persuade the people that his wife 
adopted the Russian customs, he wished also to make them 
believe that she professed the Greek religion. With this 
view he had applied to the legate for secret dispensations, 
that Marina might be present at the mass celebrated by the 
Patriarch, which was indispensable for her coronation. It 
was also necessary that she should comply with all the 
external practices of the Greek ritual, frequent the Russian 
churches, keep festival on Saturday, and fast on Wednesday, 
according to Muscovite usage.* He thought he would 
thus save appearances, and deceive even the most keen-sighted 
zealots ; but he only succeeded in adding the crime of 
hypocrisy to the other offences with which he was charged. 

On the 14th of November, 1605, the Russian ambas- 
sador, Afanassi Vlassief, being received by Sigismund in 
solemn audience, delivered to him on behalf of his master 
his credentials, and the presents which were customary at 
that period between sovereigns. They consisted of arms 
enriched with gold and jewels, of horses, and of magnificent 
and costly furs. The Court admired the gifts of the Tsar ; 
but it was whispered that those of Feodor Ivanovitch in 
former years had been far more splendid. In his speech, 
Vlassief, who repeated in almost every sentence the name of 
his master, coupled with the titles of Ccesar, Imperator, 
and Invictissimus, offered the King the aid of the Muscovite 
arms against the Swedish rebels, and ended by demanding 
the hand of Marina. The Vice-Chancellor, speaking in the 
name of the King, said that the letters of the Grand Duke 
of Muscovy should be examined, and that His Majesty 

* Gos. Gramoty, First Note from Demetrius to Buczinski, vol. ii. 
pp. 228, 229. The Pope refused some of the dispensations requested, it is 
not known which, after having taken the advice of a commission of 
cardinals and theologians; but it is certain that Marin a attended the Greek 
mass and observed some of the external practices of the Muscovite ritual. 
Letter from Cardinal Borghese to Rangoni, March 4, 1606, in Tourghenief, 
Historica Russia? Monimenta, vol. ii. p. 87. 



HIS EMBASSY TO CRACOW. 



149 



would give them a speedy answer.* The ambassador, 
enraged at this uncourteous reception, was then conducted 
to his lodging. The Papal nuncio, and the Palatines who 
were friendly to Demetrius, had the greatest difficulty in 
calming his indignation.f A few days after, he obtained a 
second audience in which Sigismund announced to him that 
he granted the Palatine of Sendomir permission to marry 
his daughter to the Tsar of Russia ; and, accordingly, 
Mniszek received a royal passport authorising him to repair 
to Moscow for his own personal affairs, and on the business 
of the King and the republic. In this passport it was 
specially stated that, until his return, there should be a 
suspension of all the judicial actions in which he was 
concerned, and which might be pending in the different 
tribunals of Poland. This clause sufficiently indicates the 
position of Mniszek at this period. J 

After informing Vlassief that the ceremony of marriage 
by proxy would take place on the following Sunday, the 
King added that he would not detain the ambassador, being 
anxious no longer to deprive his young master of the useful 

* Cilli, p. 59. 

f " They (the ambassadors of Muscovy) have this custom, never to 
speak unless the King be in full dress, whatever indisposition he may be 
suffering of ; and even if he do not leave his bed, he must at least have on 
his clothes, and be as it were seated and supported under the arms ; other- 
wise they depart without speaking. This is why the ambassador has always 
an assistant to see that he is not deceived, and particularly with regard to 
the titles of the King and of their own Prince, about which there is always 
great disputation. The ambassador reads them so as not to forget any, 
and his assistant also reads them from his memorandum. If any one of 
them be disputed, they cry out to prevent the objection being continued, 
and very often it is necessary to begin again, and to find some means of 
accommodation, in order to put an end to their clamour. The same 
difficulty occurs on their side, and when the titles are terminated on both 
parts, the principal point of the embassy is accomplished. But if they 
yield without good reason, and do not sufficiently maintain the dignity of 
their master, they receive hundreds of bastinadoes on their return."' — 
Le Laboureur, Voyage de la Royne de Pologne, Part i. p. 198. 

f Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 239. 



150 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



counsels of so able a minister. This compliment was taken 
as a fresh insult. Vlassief was on the point of giving vent 
to his rage, and Buczinski had great difficulty in restraining 
him. A few days after, Mniszek presented his daughter to 
Sigismund, saying that, next to God, he returned thanks to 
His Majesty for the honour done to his family. Marina 
fell on her knees before the Queen — a piece of humility 
which was perhaps excessive in her position, and which 
greatly increased the ill-temper of the Russians present at 
the interview. Their indignation reached its climax when 
they were informed that the marriage ceremony would not 
take place in the cathedral, in consequence of the necessary 
presence of a schismatic ambassador, but in a private house.* 
Vlassief expected that the King's palace would at least be 
chosen for the purpose, but, to his great chagrin, the house 
of a simple Florentine merchant, Messer Valerio Montelupi, 
was selected. -|- This was too much for Muscovite pride to 
endure. The ambassador declared that he would absent 
himself from the ceremony, and an express order from 
Marina was required to compel him to attend. The Bishop 
of Cracow gave the nuptial benediction, and all passed off 
with the greatest pomp and splendour. Only the repre- 
sentative of Demetrius, by his awkwardness as much as by 
his continual manifestations of ill-temper, provoked the 
mirth of the elegant court of Sigismund. During the 
elevation of the host, he remained standing, as if to protest 
against the union of his master with a Catholic. Just before 
the benediction was pronounced, the bishop inquired, in 
accordance with the usual formula, whether the Tsar was 
already married to another wife ; upon which Vlassief 
replied that he did not know, as he had received no 
instructions upon that point. It was quite impossible to 

* It seems evident from this that, even at Cracow, there was a pretence 
of believing publicly that the Tsar had not become a Catholic, 
t Cilli, p. 62. 



HIS MARRIAGE BY PROXY. 



151 



persuade him that, for that day, he represented his master, 
and he persisted in remaining standing instead of sitting 
down to table by the side of the Tsarina, at the dinner 
given by Sigismund. He refused to dance with her at the 
ball which followed the banquet. (( 1 touch the hand of 
Her Majesty \" he exclaimed, stepping back with a kind of 
comical terror. In all the brilliancy of youth and beauty, 
decked with pearls and precious stones, Marina was the 
object of general admiration, and all lamented that she was 
about to bury so many charms in a barbarian court. At the 
end of the festivities, however, Vlassief took his revenge, and 
succeeded in dazzling the eyes of the Poles, by laying at the 
feet of his new sovereign the presents which Demetrius had 
sent her. They consisted of a golden ship worth 60,000 
roubles, a multitude of little figures in gold and silver of 
equal value, a musical clock, a necklace of pearls as large as 
nutmegs, and a vast quantity of pearls of smaller size, but 
of immense value, weighing altogether more than a hundred 
and twenty-five pounds. * 

All this magnificence did not relieve Mniszek from his 
embarrassments. Fortunately, a short time after the departure 
of Vlassief, he received from one of Buczinski's brothers, 
who had just arrived from Moscow, the sum of 200,000 
florins, which enabled him to form his retinue, and provide 
a court for his daughter the Tsarina. But all these 
preparations required time. Neither Mniszek, who was 
busily engaged in compounding with his creditors and 
intriguing at the court of Sigismund on behalf of his 
son-in-law, nor Marina, who was never tired of showing 
her finery to her companions, were in any hurry to leave 
Poland. To the first feelings of joy, to the excitement of 
satisfied vanity, had now succeeded regret at leaving their 
native country, and anxiety with regard to their future fate 
in a foreign land. Meanwhile the impatience of Demetrius 

* Journal of Marina, p. 9. 



152 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



was excessive; he complained, not without some bitterness, 
of the delays of his father-in-law and the indifference of his 
bride, and wrote to them letter after letter to hasten their 
arrival in his dominions. "I am anxious/' he said, "to 
place myself at once at the head of my army, and if you 
delay much longer, you will not find me at Moscow." * 

At length Mniszek set out. For three months, the 
Russian governors and the notables of the frontier towns 
had been waiting vainly for him, by order of the Tsar, on 
the boundary of the two States. Almost at the same time, 
two ambassadors from Sigismund set out for Moscow. The 
Tsarina had more than fifteen hundred persons in her train, 
and the retinue of the ambassadors was not less numerous, f 

The two escorts looked something like a Polish army inva- 
ding Russia. No sooner had they crossed the Dnieper than the 
hereditary antipathy between the Poles and Russians began 
to be manifested by incessant quarrels, notwithstanding the 
rigorous measures which had been taken to prevent them. 
Whilst their domestics were fighting in the pot-houses with 
the common people, the Polish gentlemen complained of the 
want of hospitality with which they were treated by the 
Muscovites. It was then the custom that ambassadors 
should be put to no expense on their journeys; accordingly, 
they sent forward a note of the number of men and horses 
which formed their train, and at every halting-place they 
expected to find adequate preparations made for their 
reception. This formality had been fulfilled. Nevertheless, 
there were complaints of bad faith on both sides. The 
Poles complained that they were not furnished with 
the rations which were due to them ; and the Russians, 
that more had been exacted than had been stipulated. J 

* Gos. Gramoty, Letter from Demetrius to Mniszek, March 2, 1606, 
vol. ii. p. 281 ; Letter from Stanislaus Buczinski to Mniszek, p. 246. 
Journal of Marina, p. 12. 

t Journal of Marina, p. 14. X Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 117. 



JOURNEY OF MARINA TO MOSCOW. 



153 



Everywhere, moreover, the Poles made it too evident that 
they claimed for themselves the glory of having restored 
Demetrius to the throne of his ancestors; and no nation ever 
pardons foreigners for interfering in its affairs. The military 
equipment of the Poles offended the Russians ; they did not 
like to see their towns entered by these steel-clad hussars, 
with their lances erect, and their trumpets sounding notes of 
triumph. At Smolensko, a man in Mniszek's suite set fire 
accidentally to a few pounds of gunpowder which happened 
to be among the baggage ; and the inhabitants were greatly 
astonished that, in a friendly country, he should travel with 
such munitions. * 

* J ournal of Marina, p. 1 7. 



h 3 



154 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



CHAPTER IX. 

RASHNESS OF DEMETRIUS ; HIS CONTEMPT FOR RUSSIAN USAGES. — THE PRE- 
TENDED TSAREVITCH PETER. — JOURNEY OF MNISZEE. — HIS RECEPTION 
BY THE TSAR. — ENTRANCE OF MARINA INTO MOSCOW. — POPULAR DIS- 
SATISFACTION. — RECEPTION OF THE POLISH AMBASSADORS. — MARRIAGE 
AND CORONATION OF MARINA. — CONSPIRACY OF SCHUISKY. — RECKLESS- 
NESS OF DEMETRIUS. — REVOLT IN MOSCOW. — MURDER OF DEMETRIUS. — HIS 
CHARACTER, AND PROBABLE ORIGIN. 

Whilst Marina was journeying slowly towards Moscow, 
Demetrius divided his time between the business of his 
council, his foolish amours with Xenia, and the preparations 
for his projected campaign against the Turks. He was 
stationing a large quantity of troops on the line of the Oka, 
and had even collected a considerable army in the neighbour- 
hood of Moscow, Reviews and warlike exercises occupied 
his leisure moments. Since the discovery of Schuisky's 
conspiracy, he had felt the necessity of having around his 
person a devoted troop ; and he had formed a body-guard 
for himself, composed entirely of foreigners, mostly Germans. 
This small regiment of gentlemen was divided into three 
companies, the first of which was commanded by Captain 
Margeret, the second by a Livonian named Knutsen, and the 
third by a Scotsman named Bondman.* Both officers and 
soldiers had bravely fought against Demetrius at Dobry- 
nitchi ; but now, their interest and their military honour 
rendered him sure of their fidelity. He delighted to appear 



* Baer, p. 66. 



HIS RECKLESS PLEASANTRIES. 



155 



in public in the midst of this guard, in their uniform of 
velvet and satin, with nodding plumes and gilded halberds. 
With his habitual imprudence, the Tsar loved to contrast 
the skilfulness of these foreigners in all military exercises, 
with the inexperience of the Russians, whom he pitilessly 
bantered. One day he led his guards, with a few squadrons 
of Poles and a large number of young Russian gentlemen, 
to the convent of Viazema, at thirty versts distance from 
Moscow. At this place, a snow fortress had been erected. 
The Tsar manned the fort with the Russians, and then 
attacked it at the head of his guards. He wished, he said, 
to show his young officers how to take a citadel. The siege 
began ; it was a regular school-boys' holiday game. The 
projectiles, on both sides, were snow-balls. The Russians, 
embarrassed by their long pelisses, and still more by their 
carefulness not to hit the Tsar, naturally had the dis- 
advantage. By-and-bye the body-guards, with ill-timed 
pleasantry, or from inadvertence, substituted stones for the 
snow-balls, and thus rendered the combat still more un- 
equal ;* at last, Demetrius, escalading the rampart in the 
front rank, entered the fort, in which he found more than 
one wounded man, and many a boyard bearing on his 
countenance the bleeding marks of the stones thrown by the 
Germans. " Friends/' cried Demetrius to his courtiers, 
" if it please God, next summer we will take Azof in the 
same way, and with as little trouble." Refreshments were 
then brought, and the company drank to the future con- 
quests of the Tsar ; after which he wished to renew the 
sham-fight. But a young boyard came up to him, and 
whispered in his ear : " It is time to end a game which is 
by no means amusing to us. Reflect a moment : among 
these princes and boyards, there are several who do not wish 
you well; each of them carries in his girdle a long and 

* " Sein Volk in die schneeballen batten sand, eis, und andere materie 
eingemenget." Petre'ius, p. 325. 



156 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



sharp knife, whereas your Germans have no arms but pellets 
of snow/' Demetrius became pensive ; he ordered a retreat 
to be sounded, and led his troop back to Moscow. The 
people had already begun to murmur, and a report had been 
spread through the town that the Tsar had ordered his 
Poles and Germans to massacre the chief members of the 
Russian nobility.* 

At all events, the boast of Demetrius, announcing the 
capture of Azof for the next campaign, had spread terror 
among the Tartars. The Khan of the Crimea left his 
capital and took refuge among the steppes, despairing 
already of being able to resist the arms of Muscovyf. 

Among the familiar friends of the Tsar, most encouraged 
his imprudent conduct, from being accustomed to admire all 
that was done by their master ; but some, making a parade 
of their attachment to ancient Russian usages, obtained for 
themselves the reputation among the public of being austere 
councillors, and taking advantage of the habitual good- 
nature of Demetrius, gained by this means considerable 
popularity. As might be supposed, the flatterers obtained all 
his confidence, and the remonstrances of the partisans of anti- 
quated customs merely stimulated the school-boy levity of 
a sovereign of twenty-three years of age. It was a pleasure 
to him to scandalise his rigid censors, and to laugh at their 
zeal or pretended scruples. This amusement had its 
dangers, for all those usages which he loved to set at naught 
were connected with the national religion, and his plea- 
santries were regarded as so many acts of sacrilege. It is 
related that Prince Basil Schuisky, seeing some roast veal 
one day on the table of the Tsar, ventured a few respectful 
observations, and expressed his surprise that a meat 
prohibited by the orthodox church should be served up 
before the Tsar. Demetrius only laughed at his scruples ; 
but when the boyard Tatischef took the liberty of declaim. - 

* Baer, p. 69, et seq. f Baer, p. 64. 



THE PRETENDED TSAREVITCH PETER. 157 



ing against the scandal in insolent language, the Tsar lost all 
patience, had him driven from the palace, and even 
threatened to banish him.* Discussions between a prince 
and his courtiers generally terminate in this manner. Some 
persons think that the two boyards acted premeditatedly ; 
that Schuisky deceived the Emperor by pretending regret for 
an act of impiety which he hoped to turn to his own advan- 
tage, whilst Tatischef had undertaken to exhaust the patience 
of Demetrius, in order to pass himself off as a victim to his 
orthodoxy. However this maybe, the Emperor's anger was 
not of long duration ; he pardoned Tatischef, at the request 
of Basmanof, f and we shall presently see what reward the 
latter obtained for his good offices. 

Whilst Demetrius was preparing to carry war into the 
Crimea, he was himself threatened with civil war, and a new 
pretender made his appearance, to dispute his possession of 
the throne. The example of a successful imposture was 
too tempting not to find many imitators. The Cossacks of 
the Volga were jealous of the glory and rewards gained by 
their brethren of the Don and the Dnieper. They deter- 
mined, in their turn, to have a miraculously preserved 
Tsarevitch, and to make him Emperor. A young man,, 
whose real name has remained unknown, J appeared in 
several Cossack villages in the neighbourhood of Kazan, and 
declared that he was Prince Peter Fedorovitch, another 
victim of Boris. He was the son, he said, of Tsar Feodor 
Ivanovitch and his wife Irene. He had been taken from 
his mother immediately after his birth, and entrusted to the 
care of some Cossacks, either in order to efface every clue 

* Margeret, p. 130. The doctors asserted that to kill, in order to eat, 
an animal which had not yet attained its full growth, was in some sort to 
oppose the will of God, and consequently an act of impiety. 

f Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 338. 

X Palitsyne, p. 31, in accordance with some unknown authority, relates 
that this man was the serf of a captain of Strelitz. Karamzin says that 
he was a Cossack, named Ileika. 



15S 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



to his origin, or to preserve him from the dagger of Boris, 
which had just proved fatal to his uncle, young Demetrius. 
A female child had been substituted in his place, and 
acknowledged by the duped Feodor. This daughter, as we 
are already aware, had died in infancy. Such a story was 
quite sufficient to arouse the sympathies of three or four 
thousand Cossacks, who began to pillage the country in the 
name of the legitimate Tsarevitch. ;< But at a time when 
the legitimacy of Demetrius was beginning to be regarded 
with great suspicion, this new fable obtained no credence at 
Moscow. The Cossacks themselves did not appear to 
entertain much respect for the elect of their choice; and 
Demetrius was the only person who treated the matter 
seriously. He wrote to this young man, the instrument 
and puppet of a few atamans of the Volga, to invite him to 
Moscow to set forth his pretended rights, offering him a 
pension worth v of his rank if he made good his claims, and 
threatening him with condign punishment if he had usurped 
a revered name. This proposition, accompanied by a few 
movements of the Russian army, was sufficient to induce the 
so-called son of Feodor to take refuge in the steppes, 
whence he reappeared at a later date. 4 - 

Marina spent more than three months in her journey from 
Cracow to Moscow ; she travelled with extreme slowness, 
notwithstanding the reiterated letters of the Tsar. At every 
stage fresh couriers arrived, bearing presents for the 
Tsarina and her family ; they offered her precious stones, 
furniture, furs, and often sacks of roubles, which the Tsar 
recommended her to distribute with unsparing munificence. 
But everything may be bought except the affection of the 

* ilargeret, p. 131 ; Baer, p. 11 S. 
f Margeret. p. 131; Baer, p. 11 S. This proposition on the part of 
Demetrius is remarkable. It proves teat at this period the right of 
succession in the direct line was not recognised in Russia, since Demetrius, 
the brother of Feodor, thought himself obliged only to grant, a pension to 
the son of Feodor. 



JOURNEY OF MARINA. 



159 



people. The boyards, the gentry, and the clergy punctually 
obeyed the orders of the Emperor ; they formed an escort 
to their new Sovereign, presented her with bread and salt, 
and did her homage as she passed. Yet it was easy to see 
that this politeness was forced, and that fear alone brought 
them into her presence. Orders had been given everywhere 
that bridges should be built, the roads repaired, and the 
streets swept; frequently even palaces of wood were con- 
structed, expressly to receive the Tsarina and her suite, in 
the midst of desert forests. Demetrius put the climax to 
his gallantries by paying his guests a visit incognito at 
Mojaisk, and after having passed a day with them, he 
returned to Moscow personally to superintend the prepa- 
rations for their reception.* 

The Palatine of Sendomir went before his daughter to 
the Kremlin, where he was treated with the greatest magni- 
ficence. A Polish gentleman of his suite has left an account 
of his journey to Moscow. I shall give some extracts from 
this, which may furnish some idea of the manners and 
customs of the period. Basmanof received Mniszek on his 
entrance into Moscow, at the head of a wooden bridge very 
ingeniously constructed, " without piles or stakes, and 
supported only by strong cables." In America, more than 
a century before, the Spaniards had found suspension 
bridges, built by the Incas. The Russians, on their side, 
seem to have devised the same invention.! 

The Tsar had been present, incognito, at the entrance of 
Mniszek, and on the following day he received him in 
official audience. He was seated upon a golden throne, 
attired in a robe, the original fabric of which was hidden 
beneath an embroidery of pearls ; his crown was on his 
head, and the imperial sceptre in his hand. Above the 
throne hung a canopy, resting upon silver lions and griffins; 
bunches of pearls and precious stones served as the fringe 

* Baer, p. 71. t Journal of Marina, p. 20, 



160 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



to the brocade of this canopy, at the summit of which stood 
a golden eagle. On each side of the throne stood officers 
armed with halberds, and dressed in caftans of white satin 
bordered with ermine, over which thick chains of gold were 
suspended. On the right hand of the Tsar was the Patriarch, 
on his left, Basil Schuisky bearing the imperial sword,* and, 
a little behind, a boyard holding a pocket-handkerchief, 
which did not remain unused during the ceremony. Behind 
these officers stood a crowd of bishops, boyards of the 
council, and officers of the palace, all magnificently attired. 

The Palatine kissed the hand of the Tsar, and made him 
a harangue which affected him so much, that His Majesty 
" wept like a beaver," f to use the quaint expression of the 
author of the narrative which I am copying. As etiquette 
or emotion would not allow the Tsar to reply himself, 
Afanassi Vlassief, in the name of his master, congratulated 
Mniszek on his safe arrival. The Palatine then sat down 
upon a seat a few paces in front of the throne, whilst his 
son, the Starost of Sanocz, and the Princes Wiszniowiecki, 
were presented in due form. Then Demetrius rose from 
his throne, and invited the Palatine to dinner, while Bas- 
manof, by his order, announced to the Polish gentlemen of 
his suite, that the Tsar did them the same honour. Every- 
thing in the Russian Court seemed strange to the Polish 
nobles, already accustomed to the elegance and refinement 
of Western Europe. The palace of Demetrius, indeed, 
combined the splendour and the barbarism of oriental 
pomp ; it was built of wood, like most of the houses in 
Moscow, but the framework of the doors was covered with 
pure gold ; and earthenware stoves, surrounded by a net- 
work of silver, heated the apartments. In the dining hall, 
the Poles admired the prodigious quantity of silver plate 

* Journal of Marina, p. 20. Should it not rather be Skopin Schuisky ! 
as he has the title of Sword-bearer in the list of the imperial council, 
f " On plakal kak Bobr." Journal of Marina, p. 23. 



RECEPTION OF MNISZEK. 161 

displayed on the side-boards ; there were horses, lions, 
griffins, unicorns, and vases of a thousand fantastic forms, 
piled one above another, from the floor to the ceiling : 
enormous barrels of silver, encircled with hoops of gold, 
contained a plentiful supply of hydromel and wine.* The 
Tsar sate on an elevated dais, before a table of silver-gilt, 
covered with a gold- embroidered cloth, which had been 
prepared for himself alone. On his left hand, another 
table, standing a little lower, had been spread for the 
Palatine, his son, and the two Princes Wiszniowiecki, 
who were regarded as the allies of the Emperor. Lastly, 
opposite the Tsar, the Polish gentlemen sat down at a third 
table with a number of Russian boyards, who had been 
appointed to do them the honours of the feast. No plates 
were given to the guests at this third table ; that was a 
distinction reserved for the Palatine and other relatives of 
the Tsarina, and the Tsar took care to inform them, that 
by treating them thus he violated imperial etiquette in their 
favour. In the absence of plates, the Tsar sent large slices 
of white bread, cut with his own hand, to each of his guests, 
and they used these slices after the manner of the heroes of 
the iEneid.f The dinner lasted several hours, and was 
composed of an interminable series of dishes, which were 
served up one after another without interruption, in the 
oriental fashion. Towards the end of the repast, beverages 

* " Non posso alia V. M. C. riferire abbastanza che infinite* numero di 
bicchieri e tazze di oro si usorno, ed anco che quantita di vasi d'argento ed 
indorati stavano nell' anticamara. Questo banchetto, che duro dall' 
mezzo giorno fino alle tre hore di notte, fu servito con 1800 piatti di oro 
massicio, e le bicchieri furono parimente tutti d'oro, senza pero toccare 
quelli che stavano nelle tavole delle credenze." Relazione fatta all' 
Imperatore da No. Warkotsch, ambasciatore di S. M. C. mandato all' Gran 
Duca di Moscovia, 1594 ; Tourghenief, Hist. Russ. Monim., vol. i. p. 125. 

f I have myself seen, at a peasant wedding in France, farm-boys make 
a difficulty about sitting down to table, and refuse to use plates. The 
bad manners of the present day are often the court fashions of former 
times. St. Simon gives us details about the habits of Louis XIV., which 
would be regarded as abominably coarse and vulgar now. 



162 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



were handed round.* Demetrius drank the health of the 
Palatine and his relations, and then sent a cup of wine to 
each of the other guests. The officer who bore the cup 
repeated every time the following formula: ei Demetrius 
Ivanovitch, Imperator, Tsar and Grand Duke of all the 
Russias, grants thee this favour/-' At length etiquette 
ceased, and the tables were covered with jugs full of hydro- 
mel, brandy, beer and other liquors, of which each might 
drink as he pleased. The narrator of this Muscovite festival 
remarks, that the officers who waited at table brought in the 
dishes without ceremony and without kneeling doivn. They 
did not even take off their caps as they passed before the 
Tsar, but merely made a slight inclination of the head. 

During the feast, some twenty of his new subjects, who 
had just arrived from Siberia, were presented to the Tsar. 
They had been a year in travelling from their native land 
to Moscow, and during their journey they had, without 
knowing it, changed their master three times. Our Polish 
authority says they were idolaters from Japan ; most pro- 
bably they were Samoyedes, or inhabitants of the north-east 
of Siberia. 

The banquet ended, but there was no dessert. On leaving 
table, every guest passed in order of rank before the 
Emperor, who gave him, with his own hands, two Hungarian 
prunes as a token of his satisfaction.^ 

Two days afterwards, Demetrius took his guests on a 
hunting expedition. The huntsmen tracked an enormous 
bear, which no one ventured to attack. The Tsar, leaping 
from his horse, in spite of the remonstrances of his relations, 
seized a boar-spear, and struck the bear with it with such 
force, that the wood flew into splinters. He then finished 
the beast with a sabre thrust, amid the joyous shouts of the 

* This also is an oriental custom, 
f Journal of Marina, pp. 23 — 26. Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 161. 
Margeret, p. 100. 



ENTRANCE OF MARINA INTO MOSCOW. 163 



Russians, who were delighted that strangers should witness 
the intrepidity of their sovereign.* Demetrius was anxious 
to dazzle his guests in every possible way ; his barbarian 
splendour and his heroic hunts savour somewhat of parvenu 
vanity ; but, at his table, when he reserves to himself the 
privilege of eating from a plate, we find him somewhat 
embarrassed by the part he has to perform, whereas in the 
steppe, face to face with a furious bear, the intrepid adven- 
turer appears to full advantage. 

On the 12th of May, Marina made her entry into Moscow. 
An innumerable crowd went out to meet her. The Tsar, 
who had himself minutely arranged the entire ceremonial, 
superintended the preparations for her reception. He was 
on horseback, very plainly dressed and incognito, as etiquette 
doubtless did not permit him to go to meet his bride, who 
was to be presented to him at the Kremlin. On the 
Moskva bridge a magnificent tent had been erected. The 
Tsarina, in a carriage drawn by eight dapple-grey horses, 
with their tails and manes stained red,t halted at the 
entrance of this tent, and left her carriage to receive the 
congratulations of the great dignitaries. When their 
harangues were ended, she was led to another carriage lined 
with crimson velvet, with cushions embroidered with pearls, 
and drawn by twelve spotted horses. This was a new 
present from the Tsar. At the first movement which she 
made to approach it, the principal boyards lifted her 
respectfully in their arms, and laid her upon the rich 
cushions of the carriage. Then, to the sound of musical 
instruments, the ringing of church bells, and the noise of 
artillery, she was conducted to the monastery inhabited by 
the Tsarina Marfa. There she was to reside until the day 
of her coronation, and it was reported among the people, 

* Journal of Marina, p. 28. 
f A Persian custom. The tails and legs of the Shah's horses are 
painted red. This signifies that they have just returned from battle, and 
have been bathed up to the belly in the blood of their enemies. 



164 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



(who would not believe it) that, during her stay in the 
convent, she received instruction in the orthodox religion 
from her pious mother-in-law.*" 

Although the youth and beauty of Marina might have 
disarmed the animosity of the Muscovites, her escort was 
sufficient to rekindle their old national antipathies. Around 
the bride marched the German body-guard ; and next to 
these, the Polish hussars of her suite, and those who had 
come to do her homage, all armed from head to foot, with 
their lances in rest, preceded by their military music playing 
their national airs as in a day of battle. " One would think 
they were entering a conquered city," murmured the 
Russians. " Why these cuirasses and these lances ? — In 
your country, do you clothe yourselves in steel when you 
go to a wedding ? " they inquired of the foreign merchants 
who had long been resident in Moscow. Matters became 
still worse when the Poles dispersed themselves through the 
town in search of their lodgings. All these gentlemen 
expected to go on a campaign against the Tartars, and each 
had brought with them his best arms. Some had a complete 
arsenal in their travelling chariots ; and several had brought 
as many as six arquebuses, f The people did not doubt 
that they had come to Moscow with some sinister design. 
The conspirators skilfully availed themselves of these 
suspicions, and had not much difficulty in persuading the 
multitude that the Tsar had sent for his Polish allies, those 
eternal enemies of Russia, to massacre all the Christians of 
the orthodox church. 

Whilst the conspirators were charging him with the most 
perfidious designs, and representing him to the people as an 
agent of Poland, or even as a Pole in disguise, Demetrius 
gave a very unfavourable reception to the envoys of Sigis- 
mund, and seemed only to be seeking an opportunity for 

* Journal of Marina, p. 28 ; Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 124. 
f Baer, p. 73. 



AUDIENCE OF THE POLTSH AMBASSADORS. 165 



breaking outrageously with their master. On the day after 
Marina's entrance, Olesznicki and Gonciewski, the ambas- 
sadors of the King of Poland, obtained their solemn audience. 
A boyard of the second class received them at the door of 
the palace, and introduced them in these words : — 

44 Most serene and very powerful Autocrat, high and 
mighty lord, Dimitrii Ivanovitch, by the grace of God, 
Caesar and Grand Duke of all the Russias, of numerous 
Tartar kingdoms and lordships subject to the Muscovite 
empire, lord, Tsar, and sovereign ! — 

" The envoys of the most serene, high and mighty lord, 
Sigismund III., by the grace of God, King of Poland, and 
Grand Duke of Lithuania,* the ambassadors Nicholas 
Olesznicki and Alexander Gonciewski, strike their foreheads 
before the throne of thy Caesarian Majesty." 

Olesznicki then repeated his harangue of congratulation, 
in which he only gave Demetrius the title of Grand Duke 
of all the Russias ; after which he handed to the secretary, 
Afanassi Vlassief, an autograph letter from Sigismund to 
Demetrius. When he had read the superscription, and 
received his master's order in a low voice, Vlassief answered: 
£ Nicholas, and you Alexander, we have just presented this 
letter to our sovereign (and here he was careful to 
enumerate all the preceding titles) ; it is addressed to I 
know not what Grand Duke of Muscovy. Know that 
Demetrius is Caesar in his vast empire ; take back this letter, 
and return it to your master." 

The ambassadors immediately exclaimed that this was an 
insult to the king and the republic ; but Demetrius abruptly 
interrupted them. " I know," he said, " that it is not cus- 
tomary for a sovereign seated on his throne to dispute with 
an ambassador ; but the King of Poland compels us to swerve 
from established usages. He ought to know, and the am- 

* Vlassief omitted, doubtless intentionally, to give Sigismund the 
title of King of Sweden and the Vandals, which belonged to him. 



166 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



bassador who preceded you ought to have informed you, 
that here we are not only prince, not only lord, but emperor. 
We bear this title not in words only, but in actions, and 
with no less right than the Assyrian or Median monarchs, 
or than the Caesars of Rome.* We recognise no equal in 
the North. We obey none but God and ourselves. All 
kings acknowledge us as Emperor : how is it that the King 
of Poland alone refuses us this title ? " 

Without being disconcerted by this sudden outbreak, 
Olesznicki adduced ancient usages, and quoted many diplo- 
matic documents from the archives of Poland and Lithuania, 
to prove that never had a Grand Duke of Muscovy laid 
claim to the title of Caesar. Then, after having reminded 
Demetrius of the services rendered him by the Poles, ser- 
vices which, he said, had been rewarded with strange ingrati- 
tude, he declared his intention to return to his master, and 
did not conceal his apprehension that the consequences of 
the reception which had been given him would prove dis- 
astrous to both countries. 

The Tsar quickly replied : " Our titles are those which 
our predecessors have borne, and we will show them to you, 
written on parchment. In offending us, the King of Poland 
offends against God and the whole of Christendom. We 
are his good neighbour, his brother, and his friend, and yet 
he treats us worse than an infidel prince could do." 

Mniszek, who was present at the audience, and witnessed 
the growing irritation of both parties, looked with suppliant 
eyes, sometimes at the Tsar, and sometimes at the ambas- 
sadors. Olesznicki, recovering some of his calmness, pro- 
tested that he would be deeply grieved if a question of titles 
caused Christian blood to flow. " Your Majesty," he said, 
c< should not be ignorant that the Diet has not yet decided 
upon this question. It will be brought under its considera- 
tion ; but until it has given its judgment, I must be 

* This piece of erudition is noteworthy. 



AUDIENCE OF THE POLISH AMBASSADORS. 167 



governed by precedents. I beseech your Majesty to allow 
this question to be treated in the diplomatic forms/'' 

" I know," exclaimed Demetrius ironically, — " I know 
that the Diet has terminated its session." Then, in a 
gentler tone, he added : " Pane * Olesznicki, would you 
receive a letter in which your qualities were omitted ? We 
do not receive you as an ambassador. As our friend, be 
welcome. Here is our hand." 

"1 am flattered by the honour done me by your Majesty," 
replied the ambassador, taking a step backwards; "but if 
you do not receive me as an ambassador, it is impossible for 
me to obey the orders of your Majesty." 

" As ambassador be it, then !" said Demetrius, giving 
him his hand impatiently ; and the Pole kissed it with the 
usual ceremony. Then Vlassief unsealed Sigismund's letter, 
read it in a low tone to the Tsar, and said to the ambassa- 
dors : " Although there were reasons for not accepting this 
letter on account of the omission of the titles due to the 
Emperor my master, yet His Caesarian Majesty is willing to 
pass over the offence, in consideration of his marriage. He 
receives the king's letter, and admits his ambassadors. But 
tell your master to send no more such letters : they will not 
be received." 

The ambassadors now sat down, and Vlassief followed 
their example; after which, by order of the Tsar, he 
thanked the King of Poland for the consent which he had 
given to the marriage of the daughter of the Palatine of 
Sendomir. "The Council of His Caesarian Majesty," he 
added, " will confer with the ambassadors upon international 
affairs." 

But discussions upon etiquette had not yet terminated. 
Olesznicki reminded the Tsar that, according to an ancient 
usage, the sovereigns of Russia inquired, of the ambassadors 
admitted into their presence, after the health of His Majesty 

* Sir, my lord, the title due to every Polish gentleman. 



168 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



the King of Poland ; and that, when making that inquiry, 
they stood up. 

" How is His Majesty ? " asked Demetrius, with that 
petulance which caused him every moment to break through 
the etiquette which he was anxious to establish. 

The ambassadors replied : " His Majesty was well in 
health, and reigning gloriously, when we left Warsaw; but 
permit me to observe, that your Majesty should have put 
that question to us, standing. 3 ' 

" Pane Olesznicki," replied the Tsar, " here the Emperor 
rises, but after he has put the question.'' 1 And he half rose 
from his throne, adding: 6t We rejoice to hear that His 
Majesty enjoys good health." 

Thus terminated the audience. The ambassadors were 
offered rich presents, and invited to dinner ; but they 
excused themselves, and returned to their quarters in con- 
siderable dissatisfaction."* 

I think we should form an incorrect idea of the character 
of Demetrius, if we attributed merely to the puerile vanity 
of & parvenu his persistence in the assumption of titles to 
which, notwithstanding his affirmation, diplomatic pre- 
cedents gave him no right. I think I can discern in it 
the indication of a political project, which, if it does no 
great honour to his honesty, proves at least that he was 
desirous to maintain the independence of his country and 
the grandeur of his rank. My readers have not forgotten 
the promises made to Sigismund by Demetrius, when he 
was only the guest and protege of Mniszek and the Princes 
Wiszniowiecki. He had with his own hand signed the 
cession of Smolensko and a part of Severia. One day or 
other, it was plain, he would be called upon to fulfil his 
engagements. The only means of escaping from them was 
a rupture with Sigismund, or at least a discussion, which 

* Journal of Marina, pp. 32 — 40. Journal of the Polish Ambassadors, 
p. 127, et seq. 



HIS CONDUCT TOWARDS POLAND. 



169 



would enable him to gain time in frivolous argumentations. 
Unfortunately, his natural petulance carried him away in 
spite of himself, and gave him the disadvantage in a conflict of 
formalities with veteran diplomatists. Some Polish historians 
have accused him of having, at the same time, fomented 
disturbances in the republic, and of having secretly sent 
assistance to a Confederation, that is, an armed insurrection 
against the authority of the king. This accusation can 
neither be proved nor refuted. Yet the strange reception 
given to Sigismund's ambassadors may impart to it an air of 
probability."* The conduct of Demetrius towards Sweden, 
against which, notwithstanding his promises, he made no 
serious demonstration, affords another example of his jealous 
policy, and of his desire to oppose the aggrandisement of 
Sigismund. Finally, and this last motive might alone have 
directed the conduct of the Tsar, by his haughty bearing 
towards the Polish envoys, he hoped to flatter the national 
vanity of the Russians, and to disprove the suspicion of his 
having made humiliating concessions to the prince who had 
received him in the time of his exile. All these calculations 
proved erroneous. The choice of his wife, his partiality for 
the usages of Western Europe, and, above all things, the 
small amount of attention with which he observed religious 

* A very curious passage in the correspondence between Cardinal 
Borghese and the Nuncio Eangoni, would seem to confirm this conjecture. 
The cardinal wrote to the nuncio, from Rome, on Oct. 21, 1606: u Se e 
vero che egli (Demetrio) abbia avuto parte ne motivi (sic for moti) del 
regno (di Polonia), ha giusta causa di star nascosto, quando non per altro, 
almeno per non sentire il giuditio che si fara della sua persone dopo tanti 
beneficii recevuti dal Re. Pur che sia vivo si potra accomodare ogni 
cosa. Si scriveranno li brevi, e si fara ogni possibile officio per recon- 
ciliarlo con sua Maesta, dalla cui cortese natura si promette molto N. S." 
Tourghenief, Hist. Russ. Monim.,. vol. ii. — "Constans eo tempore fama 
erat, nonnullos e factione Rokossiana promissis Demetrii inescatos, clam 
cum eo de tradendo illi regno consilia inivisse, atque de Lublinensis 
conventus eventu, impendentiumque motuum successu, celeriter per 
dispositos equos misso nuntio, certiorem eum reddidisse ; verumne id 
fuerit, affirmare non ausim ;" Lubienski, p. 72. 

i 



170 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



practices, had already irrevocably ruined him in the opinion 
of the people. 

Every day, in fact, added to the irritation of the public 
mind, and the most futile incidents were converted into texts 
for the gravest accusations. Marina, a spoiled child, who 
could not understand why there should be any hesitation 
about satisfying even her slightest caprices, passed a weary 
life in the convent, separated from the ladies of her suite. 
The regulations and usages of a Russian convent were to 
her insupportable, and she could not resign herself to them, 
even for a week. She sent to inform the Tsar that she could 
not eat the Russian cookery, and that she wished to have her 
own. Demetrius immediately sent her a Polish steward and 
cooks, to whom her purveyors were ordered to give up the 
keys of the kitchen and cellar. The humiliated Russian 
cooks exclaimed loudly against their deposition, and, never 
supposing that their skill could have been called in question, 
published through the town, that, if the Tsar and his bride 
desired to have heretical cooks, it was that they might at 
their ease infringe the commandments of the orthodox 
Church with regard to forbidden meats and days of 
abstinence.* In her convent, Marina further complained of 
being pestered by Greek priests, and compelled to attend the 
long services of the nuns. In order to compensate her for 
these slight unpleasantnesses, the Tsar sent her his musicians. 
Concerts, balls, and even masquerades, were given in the 
convent, which seemed an abominable profanation of the 
holy place.f When it became necessary to arrange the 
ceremonial of the marriage and coronation, Marina washed 
to go to church in the Polish costume, or rather in the 
fashion of the court of France, which already prevailed at 
Warsaw. A long and tight waist, hair turned up and 
craped, and a ruff two-feet in diameter : such was the 
dress of Marie de Medicis, and Marina thought that an 



Journal of Marina, p. 42 ; Baer, p. 77. 



+ Platon. vol. ii. p. 157. 



WHIMS OF MARINA. 



171 



empress could not appear in any other attire. It was re- 
presented to Demetrius that the Russians would consider it 
the grossest indecency if a woman allowed her waist and 
hair to be seen, and that no Tsarina had ever been crowned 
unless she wore the national costume, that is, her .hair 
concealed beneath the Kakoshnik, the head-dress of married 
women, her dress fastened above the throat, and her feet en- 
cased in boots with high iron heels. At sight of this 
singular toilette, notwithstanding the pearls and diamonds 
with which it was covered, the young lady was transported 
with indignation, and vowed she would never disguise herself 
in such an absurd manner. The affair appeared so serious, 
and really was so, that it was brought before the council. 
After long debates, in which Demetrius exhausted his 
eloquence in endeavouring to persuade his boyards that the 
choice of a dress was a question which should be left to 
the ladies, and upon which the profoundest politicians could 
not give a reasonable opinion, he ended by perceiving that 
he had done wrong to insist upon the matter. iC Very well," 
he said, " I will conform to your wishes, gentlemen, and I 
will respect the old custom to which you are so much 
attached. I shall, doubtless, not be accused again of 
desiring to change everything in Russia ! " Then he added, 
" Once makes no consequence." The upshot was, that he 
induced Marina to wear the Russian dress during the 
ceremony, but the very day after the wedding, he pre- 
sented her with a French costume, and said : " Yester- 
day, I did the will of my people, now I will do my 
own."* 

As I have already said, Demetrius had undertaken to 
make the Muscovites believe that his wife had become a 
convert to the Greek religion, and he was desirous that the 
ceremony of coronation should leave no doubt upon this 
point ; but he had more than one difficulty to overcome, 

* Baer, p. 76. 

i 2 



172 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



first, the scruples of Marina and her relatives, and then the 
still more formidable opposition of his clergy. Although the 
Patriarch Ignatius was disposed to obey him in all things, 
he did not dare to baptise the Tsarina, as the people, and, 
perhaps, the Tsar, expected that he would ; but he anointed 
her with the holy oils, and afterwards made her com- 
municate with the Tsar : * — a compromise which the 
Greek ecclesiastics regarded as sacrilegious, and as a 
shameful deference to the Latin heresy, and which, doubt- 
less, the Catholic priests were equally far from approving. 

The ceremony of marriage and coronation took place on 
the 18th of May, 1606, in the cathedral of Moscow, with 
extraordinary magnificence ; but the people remarked with 
horror that it was a day of bad omen, a Friday, and, more 
than this, the eve of a great festival, that of St. Nicholas. 
It was thought scandalous on such a day to celebrate a 
wedding, and it seemed as though the Tsar had chosen it 
on purpose to brave public opinion. f Moreover, the 
conduct of the Poles in the church appeared in the highest 
degree unbecoming, and the Emperor was, of course, made 
responsible for their irreverent behaviour. Some leaned 
their backs against the iconostasis, J or sat down upon tombs 
containing venerated relics ;§ they spoke aloud, laughed 
among themselves, and seemed to jest at the mysteries cele- 
brated in their presence. On the other hand, the Poles, 
and particularly the ambassadors, complained that they had 

* " Ignatii ee ne krestil, a tolko myrom pomazal, i oboikh do Sviatago 
Pritchastia dopoustil, a potom ventchal brakom." I quote the express 
terms of Platon, vol. ii. p. 158, who relates the fact on the authority of 
the Patriarch Philaretas, who was probably an eye-witness. 

+ Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 150. Peyerle, p. 56. Platon, vol. ii. 
p. 156. 

J The iconostasis in the Greek churches is a kind of closed screen, 
behind which the priest performs the act of consecration. This part of 
the church, as its name indicates, is covered with the images of saints. 

§ Platon, vol. ii. p. 157. Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 296, Deposition of 
John Buczinski. 



HIS MARRIAGE AND CORONATION. 



173 



not been treated with the respect due to them. They had had 
no seat in the cathedral, and, in reply to their formal com- 
plaint, the Tsar had stated that no one was allowed to have 
a seat in a Greek church, and that, if he had himself a 
throne in the cathedral on that day, it was by a singular 
exception, on the occasion of the coronation of the Tsarina.* 
Condemned to remain standing during a very long service, 
the envoys of Sigismund were far from beingkindly spectators. 
The Russian liturgy, with its strange rites, the traditional 
etiquette observed by the officiating priests and the married 
couple, the glass filled with , wine, in which the bride and 
bridegroom thrice wetted their lips, and which the Tsar 
finally broke to pieces with a kick,f — indeed, the whole 
ceremony was a fruitful subject for criticisms and sarcasms. 
The pride of the Tsar appeared to them insupportable 
they were disgusted at seeing that the two young people 
did not move a step in the church unless grey-bearded old 
men sustained them under the arms, as if they were children 
learning to walk. During the kissing of hands, which 
followed the coronation, the Tsar was seated on his throne ; 
he made a sign to Basil Schuisky, who immediately brought 
him a stool, and placed it beneath his feet. A moment 
afterwards, the brother of Basil presented another stool to 
the Tsarina. Perhaps, Demetrius was desirous to show his 
foreign visitors that, in his Empire, the most powerful nobles 
thought it an honour to render him even the most menial 
services ; and perhaps, also, he took some pleasure in 
inflicting this petty humiliation upon men of whom he had 
had to complain. But the Schuiskys bore the affront, and 
thought of their coming vengeance ; whilst the Poles loudly 
expressed their satisfaction that they lived in a country in 
which the king would not have dared to exact so menial a 

* Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 147. 
+ Ibid, p. 149. They inquired the meaning of this, and were told that 
the glass was broken in memory of the marriage at Cana of Galilee. 



171 DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 

service from any gentleman.* On leaving the church, a 
shower of medals and small coins was thrown among 
the people, who fought for them with fists and sticks. The 
Tsar himself threw a handful of ducats to some Polish gen- 
tlemen, who did not deign to pick them up, but proudly 
shook their caps, in which a few pieces of money had 
lodged. The populace, however, rushing to the place where 
the ducats had fallen, ill-used some of the foreigners ; several 
were violently jostled, insulted, and even beaten. t All 
ascribed the blame to the Tsar, and inveighed bitterly 
against the rude vulgarity of the Muscovites. 

Such were the impressions which the ambassadors carried 
away from the ceremony at which they had just assisted. 
Their bad humour only became increased bv their relations 
with the boyards of the council, who, following the example 
of their sovereign, affected an exaggerated imitation of his 
haughtv bearing. On the day after his marriage, Demetrius 
invited the ambassadors to dinner, but, before accepting, 
they inquired whether they would be seated at the same 
table with the Tsar. This honour was due to them, they 
said, or at least to one of them, for Sigismund had admitted 
Vlassief. the Russian ambassador, to his table, together with 
the envoys of the Pope and the Emperor. M What is a 
Pope? What is an Emperor?'"' exclaimed the boyards 
contemptuously. " Our master is a very different sovereign 
from either of them. Know that in Russia every priest is a 
Pope!"% The irritated Poles refused to accept the 
imperial invitation, and Mniszek, who made extraordinary 
efforts to reconcile the intractable vanity of the two nations, 
paid them a visit for the purpose of attempting to obtain 
some concession from them. 

Whilst Demetrius seemed doing his utmost to mortify 
the ambassadors of Sigismund in every possible manner, he 

* Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 148. + Journal of Marina, p. 46. 
X Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 154. The expression is a bad pun. 



DISCUSSIONS ON ETIQUETTE. 



175 



was more than ever lavish of acts of kindness and distinction 
towards the Polish gentlemen who had not come to Moscow 
in an official character. Affable to them alone, he treated 
them with that military familiarity which was natural to 
him, and which he never laid aside except from motives of 
policy ; he conversed with them about his armament against 
the Turks, and offered them advantageous pay, if they would 
take service in his army. Meanwhile, he was as usual 
prodigal of favours and presents ; every hussar received from 
him rich furs, pieces of brocade, and four oxen."* 

Urged by their fellow-countrymen, who had been gained 
over by the politeness of the Tsar, and overcome by the 
entreaties and promises of Mniszek, the ambassadors deter- 
mined, in spite of etiquette, to offer their presents to the 
Emperor before they had been invited to dinner. This first 
concession compelled them to demand with renewed earnest- 
ness the privilege of eating at the table of the Tsar himself. 
Demetrius answered them personally, according to his cus- 
tom : " 1 have not invited the King of Poland to my 
wedding ; if I had done so, I should have assigned his 
representatives a fitting place at my table. To-day, I 
invite his ambassadors.'' They were about to reply, but 
the Tsar would not listen to them. At length, at the per- 
suasion of Mniszek, they limited their pretensions to demand- 
ing that a written acknowledgment should be given them of 
their protracted resistance, and that the Palatine of Sendomir 
should stand their surety with the King of Poland, in case 
of his displeasure. When the certificate had been delivered, 
and all these punctilious discussions terminated for better or 
worse, the ambassadors dined at a separate table, on the 
right hand of the Tsar,, with some Russian and Polish 
ladies. They ate from plates of massive gold a dinner 

* Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 156. " Cseterum Polonoruni sfcudia 
affectans simulata comitate eos conciliare volebat .... commilitones, 
contubemales, suse fortunge socios appellabat ;" Lubienski, p. 71. 



176 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



which they considered detestable ;* and, during the whole 
of the meal, they were in the highest degree scandalised at 
seeing their countryman, the Palatine of Sendomir, stand- 
ing bareheaded before his son-in-law. f In thus treating an 
old man of delicate health, Demetrius, who, in his private 
correspondence, always manifests real affection for him, 
doubtless had in view to prove to his subjects that he knew 
how to maintain the majesty of his rank, and that, in 
presence of the Tsar of all the Russias, a Polish palatine, 
even though he were his father-in-law, ought to stand in the 
humblest attitude. Demetrius was anxious to show that he 
was a true Russian, but it was too late. 

The festival was succeeded by a ball no less strange to 
our modern notions than the dinner itself. Demetrius, in 
the dress of a hussar, danced first with the Tsarina, and 
afterwards with the Palatine, his father-in-law. The noble- 
men who desired to take part in the dance, approached the 
Emperor, kissed his hand, and figured away in couples. 
Mniszek danced once with his daughter, who gave him only 
her left hand, and once with the ambassador Olesznicki. 
The latter alone kept his head covered, and took off his cap 
only when he passed before the Emperor.J Plenty of wines 
and other refreshments were served round, and when the 
young Polish gentlemen returned to their homes in broad 

* Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 159. According to Le Laboureur, the 
Poles had no right to find fault with Russian cookery. See the account 
which he gives of the feast given to Maria di Gonzaga, in 1645, at Dantzic : 
" The Queen ate with no better appetite, for ail was prepared in the Polish 
manner, and almost done to rags through having been well boiled with 
saffron and spices. There were only two partridges cooked in the French 
fashion, which she found eatable." Relation du Voyage de la Royne de 
Pologne, part i. p. 153. 

f Journal of Marina, p. 48. 

J Le Laboixreur speaks in the following manner of the balls at the 
court of Warsaw, at which he was present in 1645 : "I have never seen 
anything more grave, more quiet, or more respectful. They danced in a 
circle, and most generally the women were two together, then two men, 
and so on. The first turn was nothing but bows, then it was a well 



SECOND CONSPIRACY OF SCHUISKY. 



177 



daylight, they gave the Muscovites an exceedingly un- 
favourable opinion of their sobriety. * They insulted the 
women whom they met in the streets, drew their sabres 
against peaceable persons who remonstrated with them on 
their improper conduct, and committed, in short, all the 
disorders which can possibly follow a night's debauchery.f 
The national hatred of the Muscovites carefully registered 
all these misdeeds. The cup was full : it was soon about 
to overflow. 

The moment for which Schuisky had been patiently 
waiting for many months appeared to him to have arrived 
at last. He saw that revolt was imminent, that the foreigners 
had exasperated the people to fury, and that if he delayed 
to give the signal, he would himself lose the fruit of his long 
dissimulation. He held a secret meeting in his house of a 
few boyards, merchants, captains and commanders of Strelitz; 
for hatred of the Poles had combined all classes and al^ 
professions in this conspiracy. " Orthodox Christians," 
said Schuisky to them, " as you see, Moscow, the holy city, 
is in the hands of the foreigners. The Poles brave us and 
insult us. It is not enough for them that our treasures are 
abandoned to their cupidity, they also desire to possess our 
wives and daughters. An adventurer brought hither by 
them has told us that he is the son of Ivan. Blinded by 
your hatred of Boris, you have acknowledged him to be the 
Tsarevitch Demetrius, who died at Ooglitch ; you imagined 
you would find in him a defender of the faith, and a pre- 
server of our holy national customs. I saw the danger and 
endeavoured to prevent it Alone, I attempted to unmask 
the impostor, but I almost fell a victim to his power. Now 

regulated cadence ; and from time to time the two ladies who led the 
dance turned down the middle suddenly with a little quicker step, as if to 
save themselves from the pursuit of the two gentlemen who were following 
them." Relation du Voyage de la Eoyne de Pologne, part i. p. 214. 

* " Die Polen soffen sie sich so iiberaus voll und toll, dasz sie sich. 
selbst regieren nicht konnten." Petrems, p. 340. f Baer, p. 76 5 

I 3 



178 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOIl. 



judge for yourselves if the danger which I foresaw be real. 
You have all seen the man who pretends that he is the 
heir of our glorious Tsars. He is not even a Russian. Does 
he not wear the Polish costume ? dressed as a hussar, he 
parades himself under the accoutrements of our enemies. 
Has he not taken for his wife a Polish girl, a Pagan who 
brings thousands of her countrymen to the spoil? That Tsar 
whom you welcomed with your acclamations is a Pole him- 
self, believe me. Can you doubt it? He loves none but 
foreigners; he takes delight in profaning our churches; 
he conducts his unbaptised Poles and Lithuanians into the 
churches of St. Nicholas and of the Most Holy Mother of 
God. They enter with him, their sabres by their sides, 
jingling on the pavement; they even bring their dogs with 
them ; they sit down upon the shrines, they lean against 
the holy images. While our priests are celebrating the 
divine mysteries, the Lithuanian trumpets render our chants 
inaudible with their impious flourishes. Your Tsar of all 
the Russias expels the servants of God from their dwellings 
in order to lodge his buffoons, his players upon instruments, 
or what is worse, his Latin priests. No, of such impiety 
a Russian could not be capable ! By this characteristic, 
you may recognise an unbaptised Pole. Who among you 
has ever seen him bend before the images of the Saints ? 
Enquire of his servants, if he even salutes the statue of 
St. Nicholas. On the eve of the festival of this great Saint, he 
gave a banquet consisting only of veal, dressed by his Polish 
cooks, for he would not have found a Russian to prepare 
that impure meat. Ever since his marriage he has not gone 
to the baths, neither has his Polish wife, although she makes 
herself so hot at her balls, her concerts, her masquerades, 
and all those abominable diversions borrowed from the 
Pagans. But that which you know and that which you see 
is a mere nothing. Learn what are his secret plans : the 
impostor has sold Holy Russia to the King of Poland ; all 



SCHUISKY^S plan of attack. 



179 



those iron-clad hussars whom you saw at his wedding, all 
those weapons which they brought with them in their 
chariots, were sent for by him to massacre your boyards 
and the ministers of our holy religion. On Sunday, the 
Polish Panes are to mount on horseback to celebrate by a 
tournament, they say, the marriage of the woman whom 
they have brought hither. All the council, all the boyards, 
are invited to this festivity : and when we are thus disarmed, 
and in their hands, the traitor will give the signal for the 
slaughter. As for all of you, if he leaves you your lives, he 
will rob you of your last rouble to give it to his Lithuanians. 
He will deprive you of your wives, and even of your religion, 
for the Pope of Home is his God, and he has promised to 
destroy the orthodox faith in Russia, to build Catholic 
churches, and to appoint cardinals and bishops. For myself, 
I will not witness these abominations. Were I to be again 
the only one to rise against the tyrant, I will perish if 
necessary, but by the glorious death of a martyr. I shall die 
in the presence of a hundred thousand Russians, who allow 
themselves to be ruled by five thousand Poles. Oh! orthodox 
Christians, if you are ashamed of your cowardice, join with 
me ! Rise in revolt, and within an hour you shall be 
delivered from the foreigners who oppress us ! " * 

This speech was received with enthusiasm; all present 
offered to share in the danger and glory of delivering their 
fatherland. After a brief deliberation, the plan of attack 
was agreed upon, and to each of the conspirators was assigned 
the post which he was to occupy. All necessary measures 
were taken that, when the signal was given by Basil Schuisky, 
who was already recognised as the leader of the plot and 
almost as the head of the nation, the usurper should be 
assailed in his palace, whilst at the same time the Poles who 
lodged in the town should be massacred isolatedly, before 

* Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 171. Gos. Gramoty, examination of 
J. Buczinski, vol. ii. p. 291. Baer, p. 74. 



180 



DEMETRIUS 



THE 



IMPOSTOR. 



they could arm themselves and collect together. In the 
meanwhile, confidential agents were to be dispersed through 
the city, for the purpose of spreading the report among the 
people, in the markets and public-houses, that the Tsar had 
just abjured the Greek religion, and that, by his order, the 
Poles were preparing to murder the boyards and most 
respectable citizens, when assembled outside the town to 
witness the tournament. 

The conspiracy was flagrant, almost public : the leaders 
alone still concealed themselves, or rather they were doubly 
profuse of flatteries and base servility, in order to lull their 
victim into false security. The court was occupied entirely 
with feasting and festivities ; the Tsar, revelling in enjoy- 
ment, was desirous that all who approached him should be as 
happy as himself : he gave away gold with liberal hands. 
Forgetting the suspicious policy of Boris, who was desirous 
to exterminate all the great families, he had, a few months 
before his own marriage to Marina, celebrated with great 
pomp the nuptials of Prince Feodor Mstislavski with a cousin 
of the Tsarina Marfa.* Now, he was desirous that Basil 
Schuisky also should wed a young lady of the Nagoi 
family ; f he had been present at the betrothal, and at the pre- 
parations for amusements, which were to succeed one another 
without interruption ; it seemed as though he had forgotten 
his projects of war against the Tartars. In the midst of all 
these joys, which never passed the limits of the Kremlin, 
the incendiary speeches of a few subaltern conspirators, and 
the vague menaces of artizans and common people, at length 
attracted the attention of the Poles, and even forced them- 
selves upon the notice of the Tsar, notwithstanding the care 
which his ministers took to keep him in ignorance. One 
after another, Mniszek, some of the German body-guards, 
and several captains of Strelitz, communicated to Demetrius 
their own anxiety and the alarming symptoms which they 



* Margeret, pp. 128, 129. 



f Ibid. 



RECKLESSNESS OF DEMETRIUS. 



181 



had remarked in the feelings of the populace. Boris had 
encouraged informers; and, during the first days of his 
reign, Demetrius might have convinced himself that their 
zeal had only changed its object. Naturally brave, and 
spoiled by fortune, he gave an unfavourable reception, from 
the very outset, to all professional spies. Besides, he 
despised the boyards, and did not fear the people, as he was 
sure of the attachment of his soldiers. He might have 
thought the patience of the Russians proof against any 
trial, since they had endured with incredible resignation 
the fierce and brutal tyranny of Ivan, and the ingenious and 
annoying despotism of Boris. The abandonment of the 
latter by the Muscovites did not appear to him so much a 
punishment of his tyranny, as the result of their unchange- 
able attachment to the princes of the ancient Varangian 
dynasty. 

However, feeling somewhat disturbed by the sinister 
announcements made to him by persons whose fidelity 
and devotedness he could not doubt, Demetrius yielded 
for a moment to their representations, and, during the 
first two or three days which followed his marriage, he 
acted with greater circumspectness. He collected his foreign 
body-guards together, and took some measures to secure 
the palace against a surprise. Ere long, however, the 
obsequious assiduity of Schuisky and the other conspi- 
rators who occupied an exalted rank in his court, 
fully restored his equanimity, and even rendered him 
inaccessible to suspicions. Some street orators had been 
arrested for preaching to the people that the Tsar was not 
the son of Ivan the Terrible. They were men of the lowest 
class, who appeared too contemptible to be dangerous. 
They were interrogated by the boyards of the council, 
probably by those very men who were holding all the 
threads of the plot. The judges, to use a Russian expres- 
sion, " looked at these wretches between their fingers," 



182 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



that is to say, they were careful not to ask them any 
compromising questions.* Demetrius was informed, first 
that his German body-guards had not properly understood 
the language of which they accused the prisoners, and 
afterwards, that they had arrested drunkards rendered 
insolent by the brandy they had imbibed, and who, when 
sober, would forget all the impertinences which they had 
dared to utter. 

One night, there was a mob of three or four thousand per- 
sons, and a kind of tumult in the street inhabited by Prince 
Wiszniowiecki, during a festival which he gave in honour of 
the ambassadors of Sigismund. The palatines took alarm at 
this ; however, when the primary cause of the disturbance 
was inquired into, it turned out to be a quarrel between a 
Heyduk belonging to the embassy and some of the dregs 
of the people. f In the midst of the rejoicings which took 
place on the occasion of the marriage of the Tsar, when 
hydromel and brandy flowed freely on every side, these 
quarrels seemed very natural, and Demetrius was the first to 
laugh at the anxiety of his friends. Tired of hearing the same 
reports repeated, and the same fears expressed day after 
day, he refused to bestow any further attention upon the 
matter, and assured his confidants, " I hold this empire in 
my hand ; nothing will be done in it without my will." { 
The officers of his guard vainly importuned him to sur- 
round himself with extraordinary precautions ; but he 
laughed at their fears, and with characteristic bravado, 
exposed himself with increased rashness. Meanwhile, 
Mniszek and the ambassadors, believing themselves per- 
sonally menaced by the populace, put their houses in a 
state of defence, and invited their fellow-countrymen to 
take refuge with them in case of danger. As for the Tsar, 

* Baer, p. 78. f Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 170. 

% Baer, p. 78. Gos. Gramoty, examination of John Buczinski, vol. ii. 
p. 296. Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 171. 



OUTBREAK OF THE CONSPIRACY. 



183 



he would only have his ordinary guard of fifty halberdiers 
within his palace, although this mere parade troop could, 
in case of a revolt, have offered no serious resistance. The 
rest of the foreign body-guard resided in the town • the 
Strelitz were quartered in a distant suburb, and the Poles 
had no special place of abode, but were scattered here and 
there in private houses, with the exception of the ambas- 
sadors and a few of the palatines, to whom had been 
assigned, in the vicinity of the palace, a large enclosure 
containing several buildings, and forming a kind of 
caravanserai entirely occupied by the members of their 
suite.* 

On the 28th of May, a large number of soldiers from the 
camp in the neighbourhood of Moscow, entered the city 
in groups, especially those belonging to the Novgorod 
contingent, who were thought to be badly disposed towards 
the Emperor, t Demetrius was either ignorant of this, or 
attached no importance to it. He passed the evening and 
part of the night in feasting, and it was almost daybreak 
when he dismissed his guests. Before retiring to rest, he 
went out to breathe a little fresh air on the steps of his 
palace, and there he met Afanassi Vlassief, one of the 
conspirators, who had been probably sent by the rest to 
reconnoitre. Surprised to see him at such an hour, the 
Tsar inquired if he brought any message from Sigismund's 
ambassadors, with whom his duties compelled him to 
reside.j Vlassief gave an evasive answer, and withdrew 
to announce to his accomplices that the palace was slumber- 
ing in the profoundest security. The leaders of the plot 
were assembled in the house of Basil Schuisky, and some 
still hesitated. Schuisky declared to them that there was 
not a moment to be lost : that the Tsar had surprised their 

* Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 171. Peyerle, p. 64. 
t Journal of Marina, p. 50. 

Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 173. 



184. 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



secret, and given orders already for their execution ; and 
that the only way to save their heads was to anticipate the 
tyrant by a bold stroke. Immediately after, seeing them 
animated by the courage of despair, he ordered the signal 
to be given for the onslaught.* 

A troop of boyards and gentlemen had already collected 
in the public square, on horseback, with their coats of mail 
on their shoulders and their bows in their hands. At the 
head of the most determined, Schuisky presented himself 
at the gate of the Saviour, which was immediately given up 
to him by the guards, whom he had bribed beforehand. He 
then entered the Kremlin ; as he passed before the Church 
of the Assumption, Basil halted, dismounted from his horse, 
and knelt before the venerated image of Our Lady of 
Vladimir, as if to implore her protection in this supreme 
moment of his destiny ; then, rising from his knees with an 
inspired air, and brandishing a cross above his head, he 
exclaimed : {1 Orthodox Christians, death to the heretic ! " 
A thousand furious voices repeated after him : " Death to 
the heretic ! " The great bell was then tolled, and one 
after another all the three thousand bells of Moscow 
answered its sound. t At the same time, small troops of 
the conspirators ran through the suburbs, shouting : " To 
arms ! to the Kremlin ! The Tsar is being assassinated ! " 
''The people, in emotion, rushed in crowds into the streets, 
and enquired: "Who are the assassins of the Tsar?" — 
" The Lithuanians ! " J answered the conspirators, and thus 
they drew after them an immense mob armed with axes and 
clubs. The populace, persuaded that the Poles, whom they 

* Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 174. + Baer, p. 79. 

£ Ibid. Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 173. Zitva, Lithuania. 
The people designated the Poles by this term, or else by the somewhat 
contemptuous word LiakM. This is the name of the Slavonic tribe which 
settled in Poland. The Lidkhi, in mediaeval Latin Licicaxici, changed 
their name into that of Polliakhi, the Liaks of the plains, when they 
gained the ascendancy over the rest of the nation. 



ATTACK OF THE PALACE. 



185 



already hated for their insolence, were meditating an act of 
treason , rushed towards their dwellings, which had previously 
been marked with chalk, broke through the doors of the 
houses, and began to massacre the sleeping inmates. The 
bravest of the Muscovites, guided by a few boyards, hastened 
to the Kremlin, where the conspirators had already started 
another war-cry, and proclaimed that the Emperor and the 
Poles intended to assassinate the boyards. 

At the first sound of the alarm bell, the Tsar, who had 
just retired to his apartment, sent to enquire of Demetrius 
Schuisky, who was on duty at the palace, the cause of the 
noise which he heard ; Demetrius replied that a great con- 
flagration had just broken out, and then hastened to rejoin 
his brother Basil, whom he found at the head of a numerous 
and well-armed troop.* Presently, the tocsin repeated by 
all the churches of Moscow, and mingling with the deafening 
clamours of the multitude, announced to Demetrius that a 
more serious event than a conflagration had set the whole 
town in commotion. Whilst he was hastily dressing, he sent 
Basmanof to enquire into the cause of the tumult. The 
outer court was already filling with an armed crowd, uttering 
the most furious threats. " Deliver to us the impostor ! 
cried a thousand menacing voices, as soon as Basmanof 
appeared in view. He hastily returned into the palace, 
ordered the halberdiers to take their arms, and then, running 
in to the Tsar, exclaimed : " Alas ! master, the people desire 
your life; save yourself; as for me, I will die in your 
defence ! " At this moment, one of the conspirators, who, 
by favour of the tumult, had penetrated into the bedroom 
of the Tsar, came up and said to him : 44 Well ! unlucky 
emperor,t so you are awake at last ? Come and give an 
account to the people of Moscow/-' Basmanof, indignant at 
this outrage, seized the Tsar's sabre, and split the intruder's 

* Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 173. 
t " BezYremenii Tsar ; " Baer, p. 80. 



186 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



head ; then he hastened to the balcony, which was already 
occupied by the conspirators. Demetrius, armed with the 
sword of one of his guards, followed his faithful general, 
shouting to the rebels : " Wretches ! I will show you that 
I am not a Boris ! " * 

It is said that he slew several with his own hand. 
Basmanof had thrown himself in front of the assassins; 
sometimes entreating, sometimes threatening, he protected 
the Tsar with his own body, and dealt terrible blows on 
every side. Whilst he was endeavouring to defend the 
door-step, and the approaches of the staircase, the boyard 
Tatischef, on whose behalf he had interceded with Demetrius 
a few days before, struck him with a knife, and he fell by 
his master's side.f At the same time a discharge of musketry 
compelled the body-guards to draw back, and presently 
to surrender the staircase. As they were unprovided with 
fire-arms, they dragged Demetrius into the interior of the 
palace, and attempted to barricade the doors. Then 
began a succession of sieges. From the vestibule to the 
innermost apartments, every room was defended and carried 
one after another. The insurgents, firing their arquebuses 
through the crevices of the doors, drove back the body- 
guards. Then, the door was cut down with their hatchets, 
and the room broken into ; the next room was attacked and 
taken in the same manner. At last, driven from behind 
their last barricade, the German body-guards were brought 
to bay in the Tsar's bath-room and compelled to lay down 
their useless halberds ; but the Emperor was no longer among 
them, and no one knew as yet what had become of him. J 

Marina, in the meanwhile, awakened by the reports of the 

* Baer, p. 80. Boris could not be accused of cowardice. Demetrius 
probably meant to say, that hewould not poison himself as Boris had 
done, or that he would not be dethroned so easily. The Bussian expres- 
sion is much more concise and energetic : Ja ne Boris vam — Ego non 
Boris vobis. 

+ Baer, p. 80. J Ibid. Peyerle, p. 62 ; Margeret, p. 137. 



PRESERVATION OF MARINA. 



187 



fire-arms, learned that the palace was invaded, and that the 
Tsar was either dead or in the hands of the rebels. Half- 
dressed, she escaped from her room., running where chance 
led her, and first of all attempted to take refuge in a cellar."* 
But the stair-case was already crowded with pillagers, and 
she perceived that her asylum had been unwisely chosen. 
Jostled and pushed by the crowd, who were gathering 
thickly around the doors of the cellars, she nevertheless 
succeeded in regaining her apartment without having been 
recognised, and mingled with her maids of honour, who 
were shrieking with terror. Presently, the insurgents 
arrived. One Polish chamberlain alone, named Osmulski, 
barred the passage with his sabre in his hand, and kept them 
back for an instant. But a volley of musketry stretched 
him lifeless on the threshold which he was defending, and 
mortally wounded a Polish lady who was standing near the 
Tsarina.f Then, with terrible threats, J the furious mob 
rushed into the blood-stained room. The maids of honour 
had crowded round the Grand Mistress of the palace, who, 
alone retaining her presence of mind, had concealed Marina 
beneath her ample skirts. iC Give up to us the Tsar and 
the Tsarina ! v cried the rebels. " We are not the keepers 
of the Tsar/-' replied the Grand Mistress," and as for the 
Tsarina, she has been for the last hour with her father the 
Palatine of Sendomir." § The age of the Grand Mistress 

* Journal of Marina, p. 51. + Ibid. p. 57; Peyerle, p. 62. 

t Baer, p. 82, note 78. I shall not think of translating bis Latin, for 
he has not himself ventured to translate into German, nor M. Oustrialof 
into Eussian, the threats of the Muscovites. " Volumus nos omnes, unus 
post alium, stuprum inferre, unus in p — , alter in v — . Audivimus 
Polonicas meretrices vestras plnrium con cubitus bene sustinere posse, nec 
ipsis unus vir (sic) sufficere.' Et postea nudabant sua equina pudenda 
(proh ! Sodomia !) coram toto gynoeceo, dicentes : Videte, meretrices, 
videte, nos multo fortiores sumus Polonis vestris. Probate nos." Petreius 
has copied the entire passage, but has corrected the solecisms of Baer, and 
turned these abominations into elegant Latin. See Petreius, p. 344. 

§ Baer, p. 83. We must bear in mind the enormous hoops which the 



188 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



preserved her from the outrages of these wretches: they 
were satisfied with loading her with insults. The Polish 
maids of honour were less fortunate. If we are to believe 
Baer, the conquerors divided them amongst themselves as 
legitimate booty, and each boyard took home with him the 
one who pleased him best.* Some of the leaders arrived 
soon after, and put an end to these scenes of violence. 
Marina was then discovered, but protected, and her captors 
satisfied themselves with seizing her jewels, and placing 
seals on the coffers which had not been ransacked during 
the first moments of the tumult. She urgently demanded to 
be taken to her father, but the chiefs of the rebels would 
not so lightly consent to lose so valuable a hostage. She 
was kept prisoner, under a strong guard, in one of the 
rooms of her palace. 

As for Demetrius, seeing the first door of the palace 
broken through, and feeling convinced that all resistance 
was useless, he threw down his sword, ran through the 
apartments of the Tsarina, and made his way to the chamber 
most remote from the place which the rebels were assailing. 
He had, it is said, received a sabre wound in his leg. How- 
ever, he opened a window which looked into the open space 
where the palace of Boris, which he had ordered to be 
demolished, had formerly stood ; the window was more than 
thirty feet above the ground, but there was no one in the 
neighbourhood, and he jumped down. In his fall he had the 

women then wore, in order to understand how Marina could have con- 
cealed herself beneath the dress of the Grand Mistress for any length of 
time. The Polish ladies imitated the fashions of Paris, and in the pictures 
of that period we may notice the ampleness of the skirts then worn 
at court. 

* Baer adds : " where, within the year, she became a mother ; " p. 82. 
The author of the Journal of Marina relates, on the contrary, that the 
boyards saved the Polish ladies from the brutality of the mob : Journal of 
Marina, p. 52. " Every Muscovite," says Maskiewicz, " amused himself 
with them (pochoutil) in his turn. It was pitiful to hear the lamentations 
of the relatives of these ladies. May it please God that the Russians may 
experience such a fate in their turn ! " Maskiewicz, p. 7. 



MURDER OF DEMETRIUS. 



189 



misfortune to break his leg, and the pain was so intense that 
he fainted. A moment after, he recovered his consciousness, 
and his groans attracted the attention of a few Strelitz from 
a neighbouring guard-house, who recognised him. Moved 
with compassion, these soldiers lifted him up, gave him some 
water to drink, and seated him on a stone which remained 
of the foundations of the palace of Boris. The Tsar 
now regained sufficient strength to speak to the soldiers, 
who swore to defend him. In fact, when the rebels came to 
demand their prey, they replied by discharging their arque- 
buses, and killed several of the foremost rioters. But soon 
the crowd increased, attracted by the tumult, and by shouts 
that the Tsar had at length been discovered. The Strelitz 
were surrounded and threatened ; they were called upon to 
give up the impostor, or the mob would go to their suburb and 
massacre their wives and children, who had been left there 
defenceless.* Then the frightened Strelitz laid down their 
arms, and abandoned the wounded man. With horrible 
acclamations of triumph, the multitude fell upon him, and 
dragged him, with blows and imprecations, to a room in the 
palace, which had been already pillaged. t As Demetrius, 
in the power of his executioners, passed before his prisoner 
body-guards, he extended his hand towards them in token of 
farewell, but did not utter a word. One of his gentlemen, 
a Livonian, named Furstenberg, transported with rage, 
attempted, though unarmed, to defend him. The rebels 
transfixed the brave fellow with a thousand blows, whilst he 
was vainly endeavouring to preserve his master, | If Deme- 
trius was not instantaneously massacred, it was only because 
the ingenious hatred of his assassins wished to prolong his 

* Peyerle, p. 61. Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 175. 
*T Baer, p. 83, who never fails to quote his classics, adds that Demetrius 
might have said with the captive of Plautus: " To be both beaten and 
dragged in triumph, is too much by half." 

+ Baer, p. 84. 



190 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



sufferings. He was stripped of his imperial robes, and the 
caftan of a pastrycook was thrown over him. u Look at the 
Tsar of all the Russias!" shouted the rebels. "He has 
now put on the dress which befits him." "Dog of a 
bastard," said a Russian gentlemen, " tell us who you are, 
and whence you came!" Demetrius collected all his 
remaining strength, and raising his voice, said : " Every 
one of you knows that I am your Tsar, the legitimate son 
of Ivan Vassilievitch. Ask my mother if it is not so ; or if 
you desire my death, at least give me time to confess 
myself." Thereupon, a trader named Valouief, breaking 
through the press, cried out : " Why talk so long with this 
dog of a heretic ? This is how Til shrive this Polish piper !" 
And he fired a shot from his arquebus into the breast of the 
Tsar, which put an end to his agony. 

The whole palace was full of the insurgents, and the 
crowd who were besieging the doors shouted from the 
outside : cc What says the Polish buffoon ?" Some 
answered from the windows: " He confesses his imposture." 
" Cut him in pieces! Kill him !" howled a thousand con- 
fused voices, amongst which might be distinguished those of 
the three brothers Schuisky, who had ridden into the court- 
yard of the palace, to urge their accomplices to make an end 
of the impostor. Presently, a hacked and disfigured corpse, 
with the stomach ripped open, and the arms mutilated with 
sabre cuts, was dragged to the threshold. It was thrown 
down the steps, and fell upon the body of Basmanof. 66 You 
loved each other when alive ; you shall not be separated 
now you are dead !" said the murderers in their brutal 
triumph.* 

* Baer, pp. 84, 85 ; Peyerle, p. 61, et seq. ; Journal of the Polish Am- 
bassadors, p. 174; Letopis o Miatejakh, p. 101. The author of this last 
narrative relates that, when Demetrius was already dead, the Muscovites 
enquired of the Tsarina Marfa if he were her son ; and that she replied ; 
" You should have asked me while he was still alive. Now he is no longer 
mine." Petre'ius, p. 348, contrary to all likelihood, relates that Basil 



RIOTS IN MOSCOW. 



191 



Whilst Demetrius was being assassinated in the Kremlin, 
the populace, under the guidance of the conspirators, made 
a vigorous attack upon the Poles. Dispersed through the 
various suburbs of the town, and surprised in their sleep, a 
large number of them were massacred before they could 
resist. The popular fury was particularly directed against 
the Tsar's musicians, who, to the number of more than two 
hundred, were all put to death in the monastery which had 
been assigned to them for their residence. The zealots 
could not forgive them for having performed their sym- 
phonies at meal-times, in the stead of the prayers which had 
been usual during the reigns of the predecessors of Deme- 
trius."* The Catholic priests obtained as little mercy, and 
some of them were massacred at the foot of the altar. f It 
must, however, be remarked, that in the midst of this awful 
butchery, the multitude spared the Germans who were 
resident at Moscow, and even the body-guards of the Tsar. 
They wreaked their fury on the Poles alone, and the insur- 
rection was, in fact, merely a national vengeance. Like all 
displays of popular revenge, it was ferocious and stupid. 
The mob cut in pieces an old Polish horse, and paraded his 
bleeding limbs in triumph through the streets.]; 

It was easy to slaughter defenceless domestics and musi- 
cians, and to kill isolated individuals who were mostly betrayed 
to them by their hosts, but the populace found it hard to deal 
with the Poles who resided in spacious houses, and were sur- 
rounded by their heyduks, and by resolute and well-armed 
gentlemen. At the first sounds of alarm, they barricaded 

Schuisky sent to interrogate the Tsarina-mother, and that she denied that 
Demetrius was her son, upon which he was put to death. Schuisky was 
too prudent to hazard such a question whilst his enemy was still alive. — 
It is noteworthy that the populace, in its outrages, called Demetrius " the 
Polish buffoon," " the Polish piper," but not Grishka Otrepief. No one 
then believed in the identity of the two personages. 

* Baer, p. 86; Petre'ins, p. 349. 

+ Journal of the Polish Ambassadors, p. 179. 

X Journal of Marina, p. 52. 



192 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



their houses, and received their assailants with discharges of 
musketry. Each of these palaces became a kind of fortress, 
which vigorously resisted the disorderly attacks of the 
multitude. 

For several hours, the streets of Moscow presented the 
hideous spectacle of a furious populace, sating itself by 
turns with murder, with pillage, and with debauchery. In 
every direction were to be heard cries of distress and 
cannibal shouts, mingling with the incessant volleys of fire- 
arms, and the continued clang of the tocsin. About the 
middle of the day, the leaders of the insurrection attempted 
to stem the carnage. Basil Schuisky and his brothers, with 
Prince Mstislavski and the principal boyards of the council, 
appeared on horseback in the streets, attended by a formid- 
able body of Strelitz, proclaiming that justice had been 
done to the impostor, and that the innocent must not be con- 
founded with the guilty. Accustomed to respect the boyards, 
the people, already gorged with brandy and pillage, and, 
moreover, disgusted by their fruitless attacks upon the houses 
of the palatines, from which a murderous fire continued to 
proceed, yielded with unexpected docility, and suffered the 
Strelitz to occupy the avenues leading to the palaces which 
they had vainly assailed. There was now a suspension of 
hostilities, of which the boyards took advantage to hold a 
parley with Mniszek and the other Polish noblemen who 
still held out. They promised that their lives should be 
saved, and their property respected, on the sole condition 
that they should remain within their houses until the 
popular emotion had completely subsided.* The ambas- 
sadors of Sigismund had not been attacked, although their 
residence was crowded with a number of their countrymen, 
who had gone thither in search of an asylum. -f- 

The massacre had ceased, but the populace still vented 



Baer, p. 87. Journal of Marina, p. 55. 



f Ibid. p. 59. 



EXPOSURE OF HIS CORPSE. 



193 



its fury upon the corpse of Demetrius. It was fastened to 
the bleeding body of Basmanof,* and dragged, in the midst 
of hootings and the most infamous outrages, through the 
principal streets of Moscow ; and when this barbarous sport 
had ceased, it was thrown on to a table which had been 
placed for the purpose in the public square. Near it, but 
a little lower, the corpse of Basmanof was laid upon a bench, 
so that the feet of the Tsar rested upon the breast of his 
favourite. A gentleman approached these hideously 
mangled remains, and showed the people a mask which he 
said he had found in the sleeping-room of Demetrius, in 
the place reserved in Russian houses for the images of the 
saints.f He threw this mask on the lifeless corpse. 
Another placed a bagpipe on his breast, and put the mouth- 
piece between the teeth of the dead Tsar. (i You played 
with us long enough/ 1 he said, " now^ play for us." J Some 
striking the corpse with their whips, shouted : 44 Behold 
the Tsar, the hero of the Germans \ " In this hideous orgy, 
the women made themselves conspicuous by their excesses, 
and by the disgusting outrages which they devised :§ in 
popular outbreaks it is universally the case that the most 
feeble are the most cowardly and the most ferocious. 
During three days, the inhabitants of Moscow were 
allowed to contemplate the remains of him who had been 
their emperor. But the rage of his enemies had rendered 
this public exposure almost futile. In that shapeless mass, 
hacked with sabre cuts, and soiled with mud and gore, who 
could have recognised the bold young man, who, a few 

* " Petrum Bosmanno ganz nackeud ausgezogen, bunden an Demetrii 
gemachte." Petre'ius, p. 351. Are we to regard this iguoble outrage as a 
popular suspicion regarding the cause of the favour which Basmanof 
enjoyed] 

*T There is, in every Russian house, a place appointed for these images, 
before which a lamp is always kept burning. 

X Baer, p. 99. § Baer, p. 99. 

K 



194 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



days before, in brilliant array of gold and jewels, had been 
seen putting on the imperial crown ? Some thought they 
remarked that the corpse which was exposed had a beard, 
and it was known that Demetrius had none. Note was 
taken of the colour of this scarred countenance, and of these 
undiscernible features ; and some credulous persons asked 
themselves whether the assassins had not once again mis- 
taken their victim.* 

The body of Basmanof was claimed by his half-brother, 
Prince Galitzin, who had it deposited in the tomb of his 
family ; but the corpse of Demetrius remained for three 
days exposed in the market-place. On the third night, the 
guards placed round it saw a blue flame hovering above the 
table upon which the corpse was laid. When they 
approached, it disappeared, and returned when they moved 
off. This phenomenon, which is frequently discernible on 
bodies in a state of putrefaction, inspired the people with 
superstitious terror. A merchant, whose name has remained 
unknown, obtained permission from the boyards to remove 
the body and bury it in the cemetery of Serpookhof, outside 
the town. It will be remembered that a whirlwind had 
greeted Demetrius on his entrance into Moscow; another 
whirlwind accompanied him when he left the city ; and, if 
we are to believe a contemporary author, who was present 
at Moscow at this period, the storm passed only through 
those streets which were traversed by the funeral cavalcade. 
At the moment when it was defiling through the Koolischko 
gate, the wind, redoubling in violence, carried off the roof 
of one of the towers, and covered the road with its frag- 
ments.f But this was only the beginning of prodigies. 
The body of the Tsar, interred near the chapel and not far 

* Margeret, pp. 143-145. 
f Baer, p. 100 ; Journal of Marina, p. 63 ; Petreius, p. 354 ; Peyerle, 
p. 70 ; Journal of the Polish Ambassadors, p. 192. 



DISPERSION OF HIS ASHES. 



195 



from other victims of Muscovite vengeance, was not destined 
to remain long in repose. It was remarked that two birds 
like doves were wont to perch near his grave ; they flew 
away at the approach of the curious, but soon after returned 
to their first post, like funereal genii appointed to guard 
these mutilated remains. A new flame was seen, or 
imagined, hovering above this tomb ; and some even heard 
sounds of supernatural music. At length, the grave was 
opened and thrown into confusion, and the body was found 
on the ground, far from the chapel, at the other end of the 
cemetery. The terror was general; the people thought 
that Demetrius must be a diabolical creature, a kind of 
vampire. Some said that he had learnt magic among the 
Finns, and that he was one of those sorcerers who, by their 
infernal art, could die and come to life again. He was 
thrown upon a heap of faggots, and burned to ashes. With 
an excess of precaution, these ashes were collected and 
placed in a cannon, which was dragged to the gate by which 
Demetrius had entered Moscow ; then the cannoneers 
turned the mouth of the gun in the direction of the road 
which leads to Poland, fired, and Russia fancied herself 
finally delivered.* Vain hope! The dust of the impostor 
had been cast to the winds, but his name still subsisted, 
together with the recollection of his audacity and of his 
successes. Like a new phoenix, Demetrius was about to 
rise again from his ashes. 

He had reigned for very nearly eleven months when he 
was assassinated. He was like a brilliant meteor, bursting 
forth suddenly in the darkness, and disappearing without 
leaving any trace of its passage. The great reforms and 
vast designs which he projected, perished with him. If he 
had obtained any successes against the Tartars, he would 

* Peyerle, p. 70 ; Baer, p. 100 ; Petre'ius, p. 354 ; Journal of the Polish 
Ambassadors, p. 192. 

k 2 



196 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



have formed a national army which would have strengthened 
him upon his throne. This army it was which failed him, 
or rather he was unable to give it leaders willing to second 
him. The people, who had for a moment been dazzled by 
his boldness, abandoned him, believing that he had sold 
himself to the eternal enemies of Russia. And yet, with the 
exception of his marriage to a Pole, Demetrius had neglected 
no means of satisfying the national pride of his subjects; 
and it cannot be doubted that he sincerely desired the 
independence and aggrandisement of his country, espe- 
cially as he identified it with his own glory. He was 
charged with the intention of ceding to Poland some of the 
provinces of his empire, at the very moment when he was 
repudiating the pretensions of Sigismund. But all his 
agents were leagued together against him. The boyards, 
tired of the yoke of Boris, had welcomed him as a liberator^ 
because he was the only one who had dared to raise the 
standard of rebellion against the despot whom all detested, 
but feared. They took him at first for a bold soldier, who, 
in return for a few empty honours, would lend his sword to 
the nobility who had been humbled and debased by Boris. 
The chiefs of this nobility expected to govern under the 
name of Demetrius ; and, if I may so speak, they welcomed 
him, and favoured his entrance into Moscow, as an expedient 
for an interregnum. Ambitious and timid aristocracies 
readily adopt a leader in the moment of danger, but they 
wish to reap for themselves the fruits of his victory.. When 
•the boyards perceived that this young adventurer would 
and could reign by himself, it became their only care to 
render him odious. His irreligion, or rather his toleration, 
served their plans marvellously well. Exempt from popular 
superstitions, with a young man's impatience to civilise his 
country, and blinded moreover by his astonishing fortune, 
Demetrius did not rightly estimate the greatness of the 
obstacles which he had to surmount. 



HIS CHARACTER AND POLICY. 



197 



He had proposed to himself as his model Henry IV. of 
France, who, like himself, had conquered his hereditary 
kingdom. He frequently spoke of him with admiration, 
and desired to keep up a regular correspondence with that 
prince."* His soldierly bearing, and his familiarity with all 
who surrounded him, were perhaps as much an unskilful imi- 
tation of the Bearnais as a remnant of his ancient habits as an 
adventurer. But the Russians of the seventeenth century were 
not more different from the French, than was the genius of 
Demetrius from that of Henry IV. The deep policy of the 
Bearnais had escaped his observation, and in order to re- 
semble his hero, he would have needed to study elsewhere 
than in camps or royal bedchambers. 

It was not the least of the misfortunes of Demetrius that 
he triumphed too quickly and too completely. If the battle 
of Coutras had made Henry IV. master of France, he would 
probably not have then understood how to reign. At 
twenty-three years of age, Demetrius found himself the 
sovereign of an immense empire. With the presumption of 
youth, he was desirous to reform a still rude and savage 
people, before he had gained their affection, or inspired 
them with dread. Naturally gentle and humane, and more- 
over inclined to pursue the exact opposite of the policy of 
his enemy Boris, he believed that, by showing himself gene- 
rous even to prodigality, and clement even to rashness, 
he would ensure the love and obedience of his subjects. 
He thought he could punish by humiliations, and frequently 
even by jests, men who had been accustomed by Ivan and 
Boris to respect only the axe which was continually raised over 
their heads. Basil Schuisky had conspired against his 
life; his sole revenge was to compel him to act the part of 
a valet in presence of his whole court ; but he learned too 
late that a crawling serpent is not to be despised. 



* Margeret, p. 142. 



198 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



However, if, to this imprudent clemency, and to all the 
faults which he committed in offending the prejudices 
and beliefs of his subjects, he had not added the most incon- 
ceivable temerity, the conspiracy of the 27th of May would 
not have deprived him of his crown and his life. Doubtless 
he was at that age when men love useless dangers, and 
believe it disgraceful to appear afraid of anything. Heroes 
also have their prejudices. Caesar, when fifty-seven years 
old, after having faced death in a hundred battles, could not 
endure the idea that the Romans should doubt his courage, 
and he dismissed his Spanish guard to prove that he did not 
fear the dagger of the assassin* Demetrius had guards 
only to make a display of velvet doublets and plumed caps. 
If, instead of those Germans who defended him so ill, and 
who made him suspected by the Muscovites, he had attached 
to his person the six hundred Cossacks who, in Kromy, had 
resisted eighty thousand of the soldiers of Boris, he would 
at once have respected popular prejudices, and opposed to 
his enemies a body of men whose orthodoxy was as unques- 
tionable as their valour. With a few pieces of artillery and 
a thousand faithful troops he could have easily repulsed the 
disorderly attack of the populace ; f perhaps even, it would 
have been sufficient for his safety if his guards had been 
armed with good arquebuses instead of their useless hal- 
berds. In fact, most of the Muscovites who took part in 
the insurrection were not hostile to the Tsar, but only to the 
Poles. 66 The Lithuanians are murdering the Emperor ! 33 
was the cry with which the conspirators roused the multi- 
tude ; and, as it happens in most revolutions, a small 

* Dion Cassius, p. 386. 
+ In 1611, Captain Margeret, who was then in the service of Sigismund, 
succeeded, with a hundred musketeers, in quelling a far more dangerous 
insurrection of the inhabitants of Moscow, supported by the troops of 
Prince Demetrius Pojarski. 



HIS PROBABLE ORIGIN. 



199 



number of ambitious men urged onwards a blind and stupid 
mob, and forced it unconsciously to work out their designs. 
Although they had long been accustomed to follow the 
example of the capital, the provinces of the empire regretted 
Demetrius, and some even armed to revenge his death. The 
people everywhere said : " The Tsar was a b:-ave man. He 
had only reigned a year, and already his neighbours trem- 
bled. God will judge our boyards, who have slain two 
emperors one after the other. Shall we be the happier 
for it '?"* 

Who was this singular man who, when imposture had 
raised him to the highest pitch of fortune, proved himself 
worthy of his success by his great qualities ? this adventurer 
who, casting aside the rags of misery to wrap himself in the 
imperial purple, wore his new garb with dignity ? this sove- 
reign who, I will venture to say, needed only to know how 
to shed blood in order to have become the head of a dynasty ? 
His contemporaries were unable to clear up the mystery in 
which his origin is involved: can we hope to unravel it at 
the present day ? 

Most modern historians have supposed that the false 
Demetrius was an apostate monk, and that he was no other 
than Gregory Otrepief ; but, as I have already stated, this 
opinion obtained almost no credence from his contemporaries. 
The proclamations of Boris, and the excommunications of 
the Patriarch Job, were everywhere met with incredulity ; 
and in fact, the identity of the impostor with the monk 
Otrepief rests only upon the affirmation of his enemies when 
unable to find any other means of opposing him. 

Two facts, both of which are indisputably established, 
contradict this statement, moreover, in a manner which 
appears to me peremptory. In the first place, it is certain 
that the false Demetrius spoke Polish with the greatest 

* Baer, p. 104. 



200 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



facility, and that he even made use of that language in his 
private correspondence, in preference to the Russian idiom * 
A contemporary affirms that he did not speak Russian 
with purity, or at least that he intermingled in his speech 
many expressions borrowed from the Polish. f If even we 
neglect this last and rather suspicious testimony, — for it is 
given by a foreigner, who was himself imperfectly acquainted 
with the Russian language, — it does not the less remain 
incomprehensible, and almost impossible, that a monk, 
brought up in the interior of Russia, should have so tho- 
roughly familiarised himself with Polish, as to speak it on 
his first entrance into Poland as well as his mother- tongue. J 
In the second place, how can we reconcile the marvellous 
skill of Demetrius in all warlike exercises, his graceful 
horsemanship, and his proficiency in huntsmanlike and 
soldierly accomplishments, with a monastic education ? 
Doubtless there were then in Russia many monks who 
did not lead a regular life ; but in what convent could men 
have been found able to kill bears with a single blow, or to 
lead a squadron of hussars to the charge? An attempt has 
been made to answer this objection, by supposing that the 
monk Otrepief, feeling doubtless conscious of the talents 
which he would need to play his part as a pretender, went 
to obtain his military education among the Zaporogues, or 
in the service of Prince Wiszniowiecki ; but a comparison 
of the dates between the flight of the monk Otrepief, who 

* For example, in the collection of the Imperial Archives may be seen 
the list of the members of the council of Demetrius, written in Polish. 

+ " He spoke as good Russian as could be spoken, except that, to adorn 
the language, he now and then introduced some Polish phrase." — Mar- 
geret, p. 163. 

+ The great resemblance between the Russian and Polish languages 
and the community of their roots is, in fact, an additional difficulty in 
speaking them both correctly. In any case, moreover, it is well known 
that the national accent always betrays those who speak in a foreign 
language. 



THE OTREPIEF HYPOTHESIS. 



201 



at the very soonest did not leave Russia until the beginning 
of the year 1603, and the appearance of Demetrius in the 
house of Prince Wiszniowiecki, about the middle of the 
same year, does not allow us to believe that in a few months 
a monk could have transformed himself into a bold captain 
of adventurers.* Lastly, two credible witnesses, Captain 
Margeret and the Lutheran minister Baer, attest the simul- 
taneous existence of both Demetrius and Otrepief. The 
former even asserts that the true Otrepief was much older 
than the man who assumed the name of Demetrius, re- 
appeared in Russia in his train, survived him, and resided 
for some time at Jaroslavl, his native town, under his real 
name.f I think it hardly necessary to refute the romance 

* Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 165, without paying any attention to the date of 
the entrance of Demetrius into Lithuania, relates that " he successively 
inhabited the convents of Petchera, Nikolsk and Derman, officiating in 
the capacity of a deacon. Then, throwing off his frock, he joined the 
Zaporogues, and served in the band of Gheraz Evanghel, where he learned 
how to use a sabre and to ride a horse. After which, he went to Gatcha 
(Huszcza) in Volhynia, to study Polish and Latin. Finally, he entered the 
service of Prince Adam Wiszniowiecki, where he remained a considerable 
time." Thus the monk Otrepief, who left Russia in 1603, and had him- 
self recognised as the Tsarevitch Demetrius about the middle of the same 
year, went, in less than six months, from Russia into Lithuania, from 
Lithuania to the mouth of the Dnieper, from thence into Volhynia, and 
then again into Lithuania, staying a considerable time in each place, and 
learning, on his road, Latin, Polish, fencing and horsemanship ! What a 
monk this Otrepief must have been ! and what marvellous facility he 
possessed for doing and learning a vast number of things in a very little 
time ! First a monk, then a soldier, then a student, then a valet-de- 
chambre, and finally a prince ; and all these characters, without detriment 
to the great intrigues which occupied his attention, during six months of 
the year 1603 ! 

f " It is a matter entirely approved and assured that the said Rostriga (or 
unfrocked monk) is aged from thirty-five to thirty-eight years, whereas the 
said Demetrius was only twenty-three or twenty-four years old when he 
returned into Russia ; and then he brought him with him, and every one 
who wished to see him saw him. This Rostriga was known before his 
flight as an insolent man, addicted to drunkenness ; and for the said 
insolence was by the said Demetrius confined at Jerislef (Jaroslavl), two 

e 3 



202 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



which was invented after the occurrences had taken place, 
in order to resolve this difficulty. It has been supposed 
that, when he crossed the frontier, Otrepief gave his name 
to another fugitive monk, his companion, and directed him 
to go and rouse the Cossacks to revolt."* But why assume 
this name of Otrepief, which was perfectly unknown to the 
hordes of the Don ? What influence could a monk of Jaro- 
slavl have among them ? And how can we beljeve that the 
real Otrepief, when recognised as the Tsarevitch Demetrius, 
could have been so absurd as to banish the false Otrepief, 
his instrument, to Jaroslavl, a town where the real Otrepief 
had many relations, and was known to every inhabitant ? 
It is useless to dwell upon fabrications so painfully elabo- 
rated in order to give some likelihood to a fable, for which 
neither Boris nor the Patriarch Job could gain credit among 
their contemporaries. 

The metropolitan Platon, who is known as the author of 
a History of the Russian Church, has suggested the follow- 
ing hypothesis, which appears to me much more specious. 
After having examined into the character and habits of the 
false Demetrius, his contempt or aversion for Muscovite 
usages, his admiration for foreign customs, and particularly 
those of Poland, and finally, what he calls the hatred of the 
impostor for the orthodox religion, and his partiality for the 
Latin Church, — the learned prelate inquires whether this 

hundred and thirty versts from Moscow, where there is a house of the 
English company, and he who resided there has affirmed to me that he 
had been assured by the said Rostriga, at the time when the news came 
that the said Demetrius had been murdered, that the said Demetrius was 
the true son of the Emperor Joannes Basilius (Ivan Vassilievitch), and 
that he had himself conducted him out of Russia ; which he attested with 
great oaths, assuring that it could not be denied that he was himself 
G risque Otrepiof (Grischka Otrepief), surnamed Rostriga. Some time 
after, Vacilei Choutsqui (Basil Schuisky) sent to fetch him ; but I do not 
know what has become of him." — Margeret, p. 156. 
* Karamzin, vol. xi. p. 166. 



THE JESUIT HYPOTHESIS. 



203 



extraordinary man was not an agent of the Jesuits, taught 
by them from his infancy to play the part of the legitimate 
king; in short, a kind of Catholic Joash, educated in the 
secret recesses of the church, in order to destroy the national 
religion in Russia. This question the metropolitan answers 
in the affirmative, and concludes that Demetrius was a Pole, 
or perhaps a Russian, carried away from his family at a very 
early age, and carefully instructed by clever masters how to 
act the part of a pretender."* I have no wish to defend 
the Jesuits from all the accusations which have been brought 
against them ; I shall not attempt to deny the singular 
talent of their order in discerning in infancy the qualities of 
riper age, and in discovering a great man in a clever school- 
boy ; but, in my turn, I shall ask, what ardent zeal was 
displayed by Demetrius to propagate Catholicism through- 
out his empire, and what measures he took to implant the 
Latin faith in his dominions ? Destitute of resources, beg- 
ging his bread in the house of a Polish nobleman, and 
having no hope except in the protection of a zealous 
Catholic prince, he flattered the ecclesiastics who were 
appointed to examine him, and became a convert-)- as soon 
as they suggested it ; but he was very careful to keep his 
abjuration secret, and he continued publicly to profess 
the Greek faith. He promised, it is true, to abolish the 
national worship in Russia, but he also promised to cede 
one of his provinces to Poland ; and there is nothing to 
indicate that he seriously intended to fulfil either of these 
engagements. Every circumstance connected with him 
denotes an ambitious man, unscrupulous in the choice of his 
means, and certainly not a neophyte full of fervour and 

* Platon, Abridged History of the Eussian Church, chap. lxv. 
+ Even if the testimony of Cilli, who was present at the abjuration of 
Demetrius, be not entirely rejected, it must be admitted that the Catholic 
education of Demetrius began very late, that is, when he had made himself 
known to Prince Wiszniowiecki. 



204 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



devotion. More than this, he endeavoured to persuade his 
subjects that his Catholic wife professed the national reli- 
gion ; and he fancied he would succeed in doing so by a 
kind of sacrilegious comedy, which proved equally offensive 
to the adherents of both creeds. His pretended zeal for 
Catholicism consisted in giving presents to the Polish 
Jesuits who had shared in his dangers, and in permitting 
them, after the victory had been gained, to build a chapel 
near his palace: but he granted the same favour to the 
German Lutherans; and, following the example of his 
predecessors, he allowed full liberty of conscience to his 
Mussulman subjects.* In a word, his whole conduct mani- 
fests great tolerance in matters of religion, or, rather, the 
indifference of an ambitious man, who regards his temporal 
interests alone in all that he does.f It must be confessed, 
that, if Demetrius were a pupil of the Jesuits, he poorly 
rewarded their cares; for, from the beginning to the end of 
his adventurous "career, he laboured only for him self. ;£ 

* Gos. Grainoty, vol. ii. p. 201. Letter from Demetrius to the Yoy- 

vodes of Siberia. 

*r The following letter will show what idea was entertained at Rome 
of the piety of Demetrius. The opinion expressed may be considered 
as all the more sincere because the author of the letter believed Demetrius 
to be living, although devoid of resources : " Cardinal Borghese to 
Monsignor Rangoni, Papal Nuncio in Poland : Pome, 9th December. 1606 : 
Cominciamo a credere che Demetrio viva, poiche vien scritto afferma- 
tivamente da piu baude, ma lesser egli circondato de gli eretici, come 
s'intende, non ci e da sperare che sia per continuar nel buon proposito che 
professava prima. E la Maesta del Re di Polonia risponde prudentamente 
che non sia de fidarsene la seconda volta, Dovrcbbono le miserie nelle quali 
si trova, moverli a mostrar segni di vera pitta, ma Vamicitia degli eretici da 
indicia die non abbia questo senso." Tourghenief, Monim. Russ. Histor. 
vol. ii. It is evident, from these words, that, at the period when 
Demetrius was assassinated, the Holy See was far from being satisfied 
with his conduct. 

X Finally, we may ask where the Jesuits could have brought him up so 
secretly that all trace of his early years should have entirely disappeared ? 
We know from the letters of Father Possevin that the Jesuit College at 



HIS LOW EXTRACTION. 



205 



There is nothing to indicate that he had any confidential 
adviser or intimate friend, not even that Otrepief who was 
one of his first agents, whom he got rid of so summarily, 
and who nevertheless, after the death of the impostor, per- 
sisted in declaring that he really was the son of Ivan the 
Terrible. Basmanof, who gave him the throne by deciding 
the army to revolt, was not his dupe, but he yielded, as it 
would appear, to his superior ascendancy, and did not 
attempt to pry into his master's secrets. One day, the 
minister Baer ventured to ask him whether the very glorious 
and very clement Tsar really had any legitimate right to 
the crown of Monomachus. Basmanof replied : 64 To you 
Germans, the Tsar is a brother, a father. He loves you 
more than any previous emperor has done. Pray to God to 
bless his reign. If he is not the true Tsarevitch, what does 
it matter \ He is our lord ; we have sworn allegiance to 
him ; and besides, where should we find his equal ? 33 * 

Many Poles expressed their incredulity' far more openly 
than Basmanof had done. Prince Leo Sapieha publicly 
declared that Demetrius was a natural son of King Stephen 
Battory ; t but who will believe that the son of so great a 
monarch could have remained unknown for more than twenty 
years, without any effort being made, either by himself or 
his friends, to turn his illustrious origin to account ? On the 
contrary, it is very probable that the Poles, who did not like 
to be thought the dupes of an impostor, were tempted by 
their national pride, to connect him with one of their 
favourite heroes. 

In my opinion, everything combines to lead me to believe 
that Demetrius was of low extraction ; for no explanation 
can otherwise be given of the complete obscurity which 

Dorpat was almost abandoned towards the end of the sixteenth century, 
and I know of no other place where Demetrius could have learned 
Eussian, and studied the affairs of Eussia. 

* Baer, p. 102. f Id. pp. 32, 104. 



206 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



enshrouds the early years of his life." I willingly admit 
with Platon that he was not a Russian ; for a mind so free 
from prejudices, such love of novelty, and such ardour to 
change national customs, would constitute too extraordinary 
a phenomenon, at this period especially, in a Muscovite of 
the inferior class from which he undoubtedly proceeded. It 
seems to me more probable that he was a native of some 
province subject to Poland, in which the Russian and 
Polish languages were both spoken. Such was the Ukraine 
at this epoch. Among the Cossacks, then almost indepen- 
dent, but compelled to behold and take part in the continual 
quarrels between Russia and Poland, he might have learned 
both the accomplishments necessary to a soldier, and the 
more difficult art of ruling men. A sietch or village of 
Cossacks, a petty republic of nomadic warriors, in which 
eloquence, courage and craft were the qualities which led 
to command, was a much better school for a pretender than 
a Jesuit college. Perhaps it will be found difficult to explain, 
under this hypothesis, the kind of classical education, if I 
may so speak, which Demetrius appears to have received. 
It is certain, for instance, that he wrote with facility, which 
few Cossack atamans could have done at that period, and 
the specimens which remain of his writing, both in Russian 
and in Polish, denote a practised hand. But in his 
manifestos, Demetrius avowed that he had passed some time 
in a monastery, concealed beneath the garb of a monk ; from 
which it may be inferred that he was primarily destined to 
the ecclesiastical profession, and that consequently, he had 
learned to read and write.f Cilli asserts that he knew Latin, 

* " Pseudo-Demetrius procul dubio ignotse stirpis homo, et ut postea 
compertum est, monastics vitse quam primum professus erat desertor." 
— Lubienski, Opera Posthuma, p. 155. 

*f We may fairly suppose that he was a Popovitch, that is to say, the son 
of a priest. The Popovitches formed a class apart — poor, slightly educated, 
and intermediary between the nobility and the peasants. 



MY OWN THEORY ABOUT HIM. 



207 



and modern historians have copied this statement, without 
remarking that the grossest errors occur in the few Latin 
words which, according to Polish usage, Demetrius, when 
Tsar, wrote at the termination of his letters; thus, for 
example, he wrote the title which the King of Poland so 
stubbornly refused to allow him, in two words: In Perator.* 
A Jesuit made him a Latin speech on the day of his corona- 
tion, but there is no proof that he understood it ; or even if 
he knew a little Latin, his knowledge was doubtless limited 
to a few words which he had retained from his conversations 
with Poles of distinction ; for^ at that time, it was fashionable 
to mingle as much Latin as possible with the vulgar tongue.f 
It is evident, at any rate, that he had received only a very 
incomplete education, either in some college or in a convent. 
At the end of the sixteenth century, it was not a rare occur- 
rence for students at the University of Kief, tired of the 
floggings and theological arguments of the schools, to throw 
aside their books, and seek their fortune among the Zapo- 
rogues, whose adventurous and free life was very seductive 
to their youthful imaginations. Russians, Poles, ruined 
gentlemen, unfrocked monks, fugitive serfs, the proscribed 
from every frontier, all found an asylum in this great camp 
of freebooters at war with all society. Such were, perhaps, 
the early adventures of Demetrius, who abandoned, in the 
first instance, an obscure family in the hope of becoming one 
day an ataman of Cossacks. His observant mind afterwards 
made him aware of the hatred which the Russians felt for 

* Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 229. It seems to me that the words which 
he wrote in the Roman letters, used by the Poles, are written better, 
more boldly, and more distinctly than his signature in Russian characters. 
Compare the facsimiles of both signatures, given in Gos. Gramoty, 
vol. ii. p. 162. 

+ This was then, as it would appear, a very common practice. Thus 
Zolkiewski, in his curious Memoirs, thinks it more elegant to write in hoc 
statu rerum than " under these circumstances." John Buczinski, in his 
letters to Demetrius, does not say " tyranically," but ad tyrannidem. 



208 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



their sovereign, and of the weakness of the government of 
Boris, which was ill concealed beneath an appearance of 
order. He heard the accusations of the people imputing to 
the Tsar the cruel murder of the son of Ivan, and at the 
same time he listened to the tales of travellers, who had seen 
the fugitive Prince of Sweden in Russia, after many hair- 
breadth escapes from the daggers of his enemies. He then 
had presented to his view, in the same picture, as it were, the 
assassination of young Demetrius, and the miraculous 
deliverance of Gustavus Ericsen. From that time forth, a 
greater idea possessed his imagination. A higher aim 
offered itself to his ambition. He boldly adopted the 
project, and carried it out with inconceivable presence of 
mind, though he had no other means of favouring the 
illusion but the diamond cross which had turned the head 
of Prince Wiszniovviecki, and which he had probably 
gained in some marauding expedition. This is the view 
which I hold regarding the impostor who succeeded in 
conquering a throne, and who fell in the midst of his 
triumph, probably only because, instead of exemplifying 
all the characteristics of an usurper, he displayed some of 
those amiable qualities which are cherished in a legitimate 
prince. 



TREATMENT OF THE POLES. 



209 



CHAPTER X. 



TREATMENT AND CONDUCT OF MNISZEK AND THE POLES. — SCHUISKY IS 
APPOINTED TSAR. — DISSATISFACTION OF THE SOUTHERN PROVINCES. — 

RUMOURS AND REBELLIONS. — POLICY OF SCHUISKY. CANONISATION OF 

THE TRUE DEMETRIUS. — REVOLT OF THE COSSACKS. IVAN BOLOTNIKOF. 

— THE TSAREVITOH PETER. — SIEGE OF TOULA. — PUNISHMENT OF THE 
REBELS. 

During the first few days after the assassination of Deme- 
trius, there was no government in Moscow but that of the 
Council of Boyards. Everything was done in their name. They 
placed strong guards around Mniszek, the ambassadors of 
Sigismund, and the other Polish noblemen who had 
escaped from the massacre. At first this was done apparently 
to protect them from the insults of the populace; but pre- 
sently changing their tone, they accused them of having 
brought an impostor into Russia, and called upon them to 
confess their complicity with that man, who had been con- 
victed of having betrayed his country, and aimed at dis- 
membering the empire, and destroying the national religion. 
Mniszek and his fellow-countrymen declared that they had 
entertained none but the best intentions, and, in their turn, 
accused the Russians of having deceived them by their ready 
submission to an adventurer whom they had better means of 
knowing than the Poles. " Invited to Moscow by a Russian 
ambassador and the Council of Boyards, we came hither 
as friends," they said ; " and by an act of the most unworthy 



210 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



treason, the Muscovite people have pillaged and murdered 
their guests. We are detained prisoners in contempt of 
the law of nations, and in contempt of promises which were 
made to us when we had arms in our hands, and could have 
punished the riotous mob.''* The boyards had nothing to 
say in answer to these complaints, for there was not one of 
them who had not acknowledged the legitimacy of Demetrius, 
and professed, in presence of the Poles, unbounded attach- 
ment to the son of Ivan the Terrible ; but they were now 
the stronger, and were determined not to release such 
important hostages before they knew what impression had 
been produced in Poland by their sudden revolution. In 
spite of their protestations, the ambassadors were detained at 
Moscow ; the other nobles of rank, the allies or guests of 
Demetrius, were sent under a strong guard into the interior 
of Russia. A large number of gentlemen and merchants, 
who were attached neither to the service of Marina nor to 
the retinue of the ambassadors, were allowed to return into 
Poland, stripped of nearly all that they possessed. f Mniszek 
and his daughter were treated with the utmost rigour. 
Marina had been constrained to give up not only all the 
presents which she had received from her husband, but also 
all that she had brought with her from her own country. 
Money, jewels, and clothing, all had been taken from her, 
either by the populace, during the pillage of the palace, or 
by the boyards, who claimed as crown property all the gifts 
of Demetrius. Marina possessed nothing but a dressing- 
gown when she obtained permission to rejoin her father. J 
An attempt was also made to compel Mniszek to return all 
the money which his son-in-law had sent to him into Poland, 

* Baer, pp. 92, et seq. Gos. Gramoty, examination of Mniszek, vol. ii. 
p. 293. 

f Journal of Marina, p. 66 ; Journal of the Ambassadors, p. 182 ; Baer, 
p. 92 ; Grevenbrouch, p. 43. 
Baer, p. 92. 



ELECTION OF BASIL SCHUISKY. 



211 



or which he had given him to distribute during his journey, 
in order to maintain his new rank. In addition to these 
demands, with which the Palatine was utterly unable to 
comply, another condition was imposed upon his liberation, 
which is a sufficient evidence of the alarm and anxiety felt 
by the insurgents even in the midst of their triumph : 
" Swear to us," said the boyards, " not to seek revenge, 
either by your own power or by your kindred, and to 
justify our conduct in the eyes of Sigismund."* In fact, 
after the first intoxication of victory had passed, the conspi- 
rators could not dissemble their fears when they thought 
of the anger of the King of Poland, an ally of the 
assassinated Tsar, and the natural avenger of his subjects 
who had been massacred at Moscow. 

This terror, which was only too well grounded, hastened 
and favoured the election of Basil Schuisky. On the 
eighth day after the death of Demetrius, he took the reins 
of government ; having been acclaimed Tsar, in pretence of 
an election, by a few boyards, citizens of Moscow, artisans 
and Strelitz, who had all made themselves conspicuous in 
the massacre of the Poles. f There was no attempt made 
to consult the provinces with regard to the choice of a Tsar, 
and some of them were informed simultaneously of the 
death of one sovereign and the accession of his successor. 
Schuisky was not liked by the Russian nobles, among whom 
more than one competitor might have contended with him 
for the crown, if the choice of the nation had been free. It 
is even asserted that a large number of boyards then con- 
templated the establishment of an aristocratic government, 
similar to that of the Republic of Poland | But the populace 
of Moscow, forgetting the mean behaviour of Schuisky during 
the reigns of Boris and Demetrius, adopted him as their 



Baer, p. 96. f Ibid, p. 106. 

X Zolkiewski MSS., p. 20. 



212 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



sovereign elect, because he bad been the minister of their 
vengeance. The provinces, and especially those of the 
South, were far from sharing in these sentiments. A large 
number of towns refused to believe in the death of De- 
metrius ; and some even called in the help of the Poles to 
punish the usurper. The Cossacks regretted their hero, and 
ran to arms ; even at Moscow, the people had imbibed a 
taste for rioting, and mutinied every instant ;* and, in a 
word, amid the general confusion, every bold spirit perceived 
an opportunity for making his fortune by attacking a 
government which was as yet feeble and insecurely 
established. Such were the difficulties which embarrassed 
Basil on his accession to the throne. To oppose them, he 
had no army, and no money ; for the prodigalities of 
Demetrius, and the pillage of the Kremlin, had exhausted 
the imperial treasury. 

He still possessed, however, an important means of 
strength in his well-known orthodoxy, which assured to him 
the favour of the clergy, and gave him hopes of being able 
to quell the masses by their assistance. His first care was 
to depose and banish to a convent the Patriarch Ignatius, 
who was doubly suspected as a heretic, and as a creature of 
Demetrius. He appointed as his successor Hermogenes, 
the Metropolitan of Kazan, who, by his great age, his 
irreproachable life, and his sincere piety, had deserved the 
general esteem of the nation. Too simple-minded to 
distinguish hypocrisy from sincere faith, Hermogenes 
became a useful instrument in the hands of Schuisky. 

J have already alluded to the reports spread at Moscow 
with regard to the escape of the Tsar, whose disfigured 
corpse had given rise to many comments. Some had 
refused to recognise the body ; and further, the old story 
that the emperor's counterpart had been assassinated in his 



* Margeret, pp. 139, 140. 



REPORTS OF HIS ESCAPE. 



213 



stead, was already set afloat. Four Turkish horses which 
Demetrius had had in his stables had disappeared, and no 
trace of them could be found in Moscow ; * and credulous 
persons asserted that, by the aid of these fleet steeds, 
Demetrius had left the city in the midst of the disorder. 
Presently, alarming reports arrived from various quarters. 
A boatman had rowed across the Oka three unknown 
individuals dressed in the Russian costume, but speaking 
Polish. One of them had given him six ducats, saying: 
"You have just saved the Tsar; when lie returns to 
Moscow with a Polish army, he will not forget the service 
you have done him.'' A little further forward, on the 
road to Poutivle, the same men had rested at a German inn, 
and made use of similar language on leaving it. f It was 
afterwards discovered that one of these unknown travellers 
was Prince Shakhofskoi, who, with singular foresight, on 
the day following the death of the impostor, had formed the 
idea of personating him. It was important to silence all 
these menacing reports, and for this purpose Basil made 
use of Hermogenes, just as Boris had made use of the 
Patriarch Job. The surest way to stifle all these rumours 
at their origin appeared to him to he, to make a saint of the 
true Demetrius who had died at Ooglitch, so as to deprive 
every impostor of the desire and the means of resuscitating 
so brilliant a character. By order of the new Tsar, and in 
consequence of numerous miracles wrought at Ooglitch, the 
body of the young prince was exhumed : it was found 
fresh and uninjured by decay, and in his hands were some 
nuts, in as miraculous a state of preservation as the corpse 
itself. J The relics of the martyred Tsarevitch, when 
brought to Moscow, cured all sorts of diseases, like all new 

* Margeret, p. 143 ; Grevenbrouch, p. 56. + Baer. pp. 109, 110. 

X Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 311. The disenterment of the relics took 
place (if we may believe the official document published on this subject 



214 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



relics; but their efficacy was not long credited. Basil 
himself injured their reputation by an act of great awkward- 
ness ; he gave permission for the conveyance with great 
pomp, to the monastery of Troitsa, of the mortal remains 
of Boris Godounof,* whom he had stigmatised, a few days 
before, as the assassin of the Tsarevitch, when he published 
the miracles of the new St. Dimitri. Doubtless, he hoped 
he would thus gain the support of the clients of a family 
which was still powerful ; but his enemies immediately 
accused him of an odious act of jugglery. It was asserted 
that he had substituted the corpse of a murdered child for 
the decayed body of the true Demetrius ; thus adding 
horrible sacrilege to the crime of homicide, f 

The public retractations of the Tsarina-nun Marfa, the 
mother of Demetrius, obtained no greater credence than 
the miracles of her son. In a letter which she signed, and 
which Basil immediately diffused in every direction, the 
Tsarina declared that the impostor, Grishka Otrepief, had 
threatened to put herself and all her family to death, if she 
did not acknowledge him as her son ; that this same bandit 
had committed the awful sacrilege of marrying a Latin girl 

by order of Schuisky), in presence of the metropolitan Philaretas, of the 
Archbishop of Astracan, two archimandrites and four boyard^, among 
whom was Andrew ISago'i, the uncle of Demetrius. — It will be observed 
that in the report of the Ooglitch inquiry no mention is made of the nuts 
the prince was eating at the moment of his death. It is merely stated 
that he was amusing himself by sticking a knife into the ground. It is 
strange that Schuisky did not read oyer this report, which he had signed 
with his own hand ! 
* Baer, p. 113. 

*T Baer, pp. 10S, 109. Like a true Lutheran, Baer makes great sport of 
the superstition of the Russians in believing in the miracles of tbeir saints. 
According to his statement, the halt and blind who were cured by praying 
on the tomb of the canonized Tsarevitch, were a set of scoundrels hired to 
enact the farce. One miracle only is allowed by our worthy chronicler : 
that of a sham paralytic, who had no sooner touched the tomb than he fell 
dead on the spot. 



RENEWAL OF CIVIL WAR. 



'215 



who had never been baptised ; and that finally, in addition 
to the massacre of all the boyards, he meditated the 
destruction of the orthodox religion, and the establishment 
of the Lutheran and Catholic faith, * This strange confusion 
of terms, which recurs in the proclamations of Basil and the 
Patriarch, was probably unnoticed by most persons at that 
time, for the Russians regarded as pagans all those who did 
not belong to their church. But who could believe in the 
sincerity of the Tsarina after so many contradictory avowals 
and disavowals? To declare that she had yielded through 
fear of the threats of a man whose gentleness was well 
known, was to suggest to all minds the idea that she was 
herself yielding at that moment to other menaces and other 
fears. 

In the meanwhile, it was announced on every side that 
the Tsar Demetrius was still alive. Letters sealed with his 
seal were circulating through all the towns of Southern 
Russia. He was said to be in Poland, with his mother-in- 
law, the wife of the Palatine of Sendomir, ready to take the 
field at the head of a numerous army. In fact, Prince 
Shakhofskoi, on his arrival at Poutivle, had roused the 
people to revolt, and collected in a few days a large number 
of Cossacks and peasants. Civil war began afresh. All the 
hordes of the Don took arms, some in the name of Demetrius, 
others under the standard of a second impostor, the pretended 
Tsarevitch Peter, who, it will be remembered, under the 
previous reign, had thrown the province of Kazan into 
confusion for a few days. 

* Gk>s. Gramoty, vol. ii., p. 306. In reading this document, it is impos- 
sible not to perceive that the Tsarina had nothing whatever to do with its 
preparation, which assuredly devolved upon very ignorant secretaries. 
It will be remarked that the Tsarina declares that her son was hilled before 
her eyes and in presence of her brother, by order of Boris Godounof — 
two assertions utterly at variance with the official Report of the Ooglitch 
inquiry. 



218 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



Such was still the power of the name of Demetrius that, 
when levying troops to repress the rebellion, Schuisky did 
not venture at first to tell them what enemy they were about 
to oppose ; he proclaimed that the Tartars were ravaging 
Severia ; and the soldiers who, at their departure from 
Moscow, expected to face Mussulman enemies, were greatly 
surprised to find themselves in presence of an army of their 
own countrymen. * An ataman of Cossacks, named Istoma 
Pashkof, commanded the insurgents. At the first onset, 
the Muscovites disbanded, and the carnage was great among 
the fugitives. The conquerors acted with especially pitiless 
severity towards the inhabitants of the capital, whom they 
termed incorrigible rebels. 6< Go, Jews," they said, hitting 
them unmercifully, "go and tell your furrier, that the Tsar 
is coming from Poland with his great army to chastise you 
as you deserve." f A few wretches, lashed almost to death 
with the terrible Cosssack whip, conveyed this melancholv 
intelligence to Moscow. The insurrection spread rapidly ; 
but the prince who had twice been saved by miracle had 
not yet reappeared. 

In his stead, there came from Poland a general with a 
commission authenticated by the imperial seal of Demetrius. 
He was an adventurer named Ivan Isaievitch Bolotnikof, and 
had formerly been a serf of Prince Teliatevski. Kidnapped 
in his youth by the Crim Tartars, and sold by them at 
Constantinople, he had been a slave in the crew of a galley ; 
he had subsequently escaped to Venice, where he held 
probably acquired some military knowledge, by enrolling 
himself among the Slavonian troops in the service of the 

* Baer, p. 111. 

+ Baer, pp. Ill, 112. The Cossacks gave this name to Schuisky, either 
on account of the pelisse, sckouba, which he wore, as Tsar, in his ceremonial 
costume; or perhaps, as a rather bad pun founded on the resemblance 
between the name Schuisky, and the word SchoobniJc (furrier), or rather 
the adjective, Schoobskii (relating to fur). 



IVAN BOLOTNIKOF. 217 

republic. There, it is supposed, some Italian Jesuit, finding 
him to be a man of courage and resolution, had supplied 
him with the means of returning into Russia, and given him 
a letter of introduction to Demetrius. Being informed, in 
Poland, of the revolution which had just occurred at 
Moscow, and also of the insurrection in Severia, Bolotnikof 
repaired to the residence of the wife of the Palatine of Sen- 
domir, with whom he was told that the Tsar had sought 
refuge. * At Sambor, he saw a man who was said to be the 
Tsar Demetrius ; but he w r as, in reality, a Russian exile. 
" At present," said this mysterious personage to him, "I 
cannot reward thee as I could desire. Take this pelisse, 
however, this sword, and these thirty ducats ; I regret that 
I cannot gave thee more. But carry this letter to Poutivle 
to Prince Shakhofskoi ; he will give thee an army to com- 
mand." Bolotnikof respectfully kissed the hand of the 
unknown, and without asking anything more, swore to die 
in defence of his cause. On his arrival at Poutivle, he 
showed his commission, had himself recognised as general- 
in-chief, and collected in a few days an army of twelve 
thousand men, at whose head he effected a junction with 
the ataman Pashkof. In two skirmishes, he defeated the 
Muscovites, and drove them in disorder to the distance of 
seven versts from the capital, f 

Notwithstanding these victories, the enthusiasm of the 
insurgents soon grew cold, in consequence of the inexplicable 
absence of the prince for whom they were fighting. Brave 
and fond of danger as he was known to be, could he, if he 
were still alive, remain at a distance from the battle-field ? 
Thus reasoned the Cossacks and peasants of Bolotnikof s 

* On the 17th of November, 1607, Cardinal Borghese wrote to the Papal 
nuncio in Poland, that the sons of the Palatine of Sendomir informed 
him, on the authority of a letter from their mother, that Demetrius was 
still living. Tourghenief, Hist. Russ. Monim,, vol. ii., p. 136. 

+ Baer, pp. 114, 116 ; Zolkiewski MSS., p. 21. 



218 DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 

army, who had at first believed thoroughly in the existence 
of their Tsar ; but now their zeal could not resist such for- 
midable suspicions. On the other hand, the ataman Pashkof 
was displeased to find himself supplanted by an adventurer, 
and complained that his services had been disregarded. 
Schuisky used every exertion to undeceive the multitude, but 
he found it far easier to foment dissensions anions the 
generals. Pashkof allowed himself to be bribed, and Bolot- 
nikof. deserted by the best part of his soldiers, was defeated 
by Prince Michael Skopin Schuisky, a relative of the Tsar, a 
young man of dashing valour, and with an instinctive genius 
for war. The vanquished general retreated to Kalouga, 
whence he never ceased writing to Poland to hasten the long- 
promised arrival of Demetrius. 

The impostor who had now assumed this name, was 
able to delude no one but Bolotnikof, and had been adopted 
merely as a temporary expedient in order to gain time. At 
this moment, it seems probable that Shakhofskoi and several 
other Poles, were all seeking, in different directions, and 
from motives of purely personal interest, for a man com- 
petent to play the part of the Tsar, whose miraculous pre- 
servation they had announced. Sigismund, who certainly 
was not ignorant of these intrigues, lent them his counte- 
nance without much demur, as he could only gain by the 
general disorder. But time was required to discover a 
suitable man, and more time still to effect his education. 
Matters were in this state when the soi-disant Peter Feodoro- 
yitch, escorted by some Cossacks of the Volga, arrived at 
Poutivle, the centre and head-quarters of the insurrection. 
When received by Shakhofskoi and the people, he announced 
himself as the ally of Demetrius, requesting only to fill the 
subordinate post of Regent, during the absence of the 
legitimate sovereign.* The cause of the rebels stood in 



* According to Baer, p. 118, the false Peter was the bearer of a com- 



SIEGE OF TOULA. 219 

need of the sanction of a royal name, and the Tsarevitch 
Peter was enthusiastically adopted. A body of troops was 
placed at his disposal, and with Shakhofskoi for his chief 
adviser, he hastened to join Bolotnikof, who, after a pro- 
tracted resistance, had been compelled to evacuate Kalouga 
before the victorious army of Skopin. The three com- 
manders then entrenched themselves in Toula, full of con- 
fidence in the strength of its ramparts, and the devoted 
fidelity of its inhabitants. Ere long, however, Tsar Basil 
himself came to drive them from this last retreat. Hard 
pressed by an army of nearly a hundred thousand men, 
Bolotnikof displayed a courage and constancy worthy of a 
better cause. I quote from a Russian chronicler a few 
details regarding this memorable siege ; they will furnish 
some idea of what the art of war was at that period, and 
(which seems to me more worthy of interest,) give some 
notion of the state of manners and civilisation in Russia. 

After several unsuccessful attacks, the army of the Tsar 
was becoming downcast and discouraged, when a deacon 
named Thomas Kravkof presented himself before the 
Council of Boyards, and said to the emperor in a tone of 
assurance : " Sire, order your troops to obey me, and I will 
drown all the people in Toula." This promise appeared at 
first a ridiculous braggadocio ; but the deacon spoke so con- 
fidently, that the Tsar expressed a wish to know what was 
the nature of his plan. Toula is situated in a valley which 
is traversed by the river Oupa. The deacon proposed to 
build a dyke below the besieged town, and offered to suffer 
decapitation if, within a few hours after the completion of 
this work, the town were not under water. By his directions, 
every soldier of the besieging army had to provide himself 
with a sackfull of earth, and the dyke was constructed with 

mission in the name of Demetrius, forged by Prince Shakhofskoi, who had 
the imperial seal. 

l 2 



220 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



admirable rapidity, under the superintendence of Kravkof, 
who had formed a brigade of labourers of all the millers in 
the army, who were used to such work. The water soon 
flowed back into the town, inundated the streets, and 
destroyed a large number of houses ; but the courage of the 
garrison remained unshaken. For several more months, 
they courageously held out, fighting in the midst of the 
ruins, decimated by famine, and soon afterwards by a violent 
epidemic disease."* All the labours of the siege were con- 
centrated around the dyke. Day after day, the besiegers 
strove to raise it higher, and the besieged to break it down. 
To the inhabitants of Toula, so prodigious a work, executed 
with such inconceivable rapidity, seemed an invention of the 
magical art, and magic was not left untried for its destruc- 
tion. A monk, a wizard by his own account, offered to 
pierce a hole through the dyke for a recompense of a 
hundred roubles. Bolotnikof readily promised him this 
sum, upon which he stripped off his clothes, plunged into 
the river, and disappeared. The people thought him dead, 
but in about an hour, he reappeared suddenly on the surface 
of the water, covered with scratches and bruises. <c I have 
just had a fight," he said, (i with the twelve thousand devils 
who built Schuisky's dyke. I conquered six thousand of 
them, but the other six thousand, who are the worst of all, 
will not surrender."! For a long time still, the inhabitants 
of Toula indulged in the hope that Demetrius would come 
to their aid ; his letters found their way into the town ; he 
promised assistance ; but no reinforcements arrived, and yet 
the resistance still continued. Shakhofskof, the principal 
author of the revolt, was the first to suggest a capitulation ; 
the Cossacks threw him into a dungeon. At length, when 

* Letopis o Miatejakh, p. 122 ; Baer, p. 123. 
t Baer, pp. 129, 130. The good minister, who relates this anecdote 
with great seriousness, believed that all the Greek priests were wizards. 



SURRENDER OF TOULA. 



221 



the inhabitants of Toula had eaten their horses and dogs, 
and even all impure animals, when there no longer remained 
an ox-hide to be gnawed in the town, Bolotnikof and the 
false Tsarevitch Peter, offered to Basil to capitulate, on the 
promise of an amnesty for their heroic garrison. They 
asked nothing for themselves ; but they declared that, if 
their soldiers did not obtain honourable conditions, they were 
resolved to die with arms in their hands, and even to eat 
each other, rather than surrender at discretion.* 

Basil, surprised and almost frightened at the courage of 
these men, replied that he granted their lives to the inha- 
bitants of Toula, and that all he asked of them was to serve 
him with the same fidelity which they had displayed towards 
a bandit. The gates of the town were immediately opened, 
in the month of October, 1607. Bolotnikof presented him- 
self boldly before the Tsar ; he drew his sabre, rested its 
edge on his neck, and offered himself as a victim. (i I 
have kept my oath," he said, " which I swore to the man 
who, rightly or wrongly, calls himself Demetrius. Abandoned 
by him, I am now in your power. Order my head to be cut 
off ; or, if you grant me my life, I will serve you as I have 
served him."t Basil did not pride himself upon his 
generosity ; he sent Bolotnikof to Kargopol, where he 
ordered him soon after to be drowned. The false Peter 
Feodorovitch was hanged. Shakhofskoi, though more 
guilty than either of them, met with better fortune. The 
conqueror found him in irons, when he entered 
Toula, and Shakhofskoi took credit to himself for having 
been maltreated by the maniacs whom he had advised to 
submit. He obtained his liberty : but the first use which he 
made of it, was to rekindle the insurrection. J 



* Baer, p. 129. f Ibid, pp. 129, 130, 

% Letopis o Miatejakh, p. 123 ; Baer, p. 130. 



222 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



CHAPTEE XI. 



APPEARANCE OF THE SECOND DEMETRIUS. — HIS PROGRESS. — HIS CHARACTER. 
— HE IS JOINED BY A LARGE NUMBER OP POLES. — BATTLE AT YOLKHOF. 
— THE IMPOSTOR ENCAMPS AT TOUCHINO. — ALARM OF TSAR BASIL. — 
HE LIBERATES HIS POLISH PRISONERS. — MARINA JOINS THE IMPOSTOR. 
— SIEGE OF TROITSA. — DEFEAT OF THE REBELS BY SKOPIN. — DEATH OF 
SKOPIN SCHUISKY. 

Basil breathed more freely after his victory. For a 
short time he was able to flatter himself that the capture of 
Toula had discouraged the rebels. He derived his chief 
comfort, however, from finding that their principal ally, the 
King of Poland, whose whole attention was apparently 
absorbed by a revolt of his turbulent nobility,* had given a 
ready hearing to the explanations and excuses of the Rus- 
sian ambassadors with regard to the Moscow massacre, f 
But his illusion was of short duration; at Poutivle, in 

* Maskiewicz, pp. 6 — 12. The rebels under the command of Nicholas 
Zebrzidowski and Janus Kadzivil, assembled at Sendomir, to the number 
of nearly a hundred thousand men. They demanded the dismissal of 
Sigismund's favourites, and wished to compel that prince to sign a 
compact, the conditions of which they intended to dictate. Sigismund 
never was in greater danger, and he would perhaps have been hurled from 
the throne, but for the courage and ability of his generals, Chodkiewicz 
and Zolkiewski. 

+ " Non superba, more gentis, fuit ea legatio ; multa in ' ea timoris 
indicia, adeo ut vel tunc appareret desperatione rerum suarum, plurimum 
Moschos de veteri fastu remisisse." — Lubienski, p. 106. 



THE SECOND FALSE DEMETRIUS. 



223 



Severia, a new Demetrius had made his appearance; no 
longer the invisible guest of Mniszek's wife, but a young 
man who boldly braved the gaze of the multitude, and 
loudly asserted his intention to reclaim his hereditary rights. 
With him, as a witness to his identity, or rather as a 
Mentor, was a Polish nobleman, the Pane Miechawiecki, 
well-known by the favour which he had enjoyed at the 
court of the first Demetrius. The new impostor had 
wandered for some time through Severia, in rather sorry 
style, accompanied by a small number of obscure adherents, 
most of whom were Cossacks or fugitive serfs. He seemed 
to be feeling his way, as if still in uncertainty with regard 
to the dispositions of the province.* By degrees he grew 

* Baer thus describes the first appearance of the second Demetrius : 
" The friends of the Palatine of Sendomir having set to work, sent this 
rascal to Poutivle with Pane Miechawiecki. The inhabitants welcomed 
him with joy, and received him as Demetrius. Thence, towards the 
end of July, 1607, he proceeded to Starodoub, accompanied by Gregory 
Kashnetz and the writer (or clerk) Alexis. He did not give himself out to 
be the Tsar, but one of his relations, a Nagoi. He said that the Tsar was 
not far off, and that he would soon arrive with Miechawiecki, and 
several thousands of cavalry. As the Tsar did not appear, the people of 
Starodoub thought they had been deceived, so they took the impostor and 
his acolytes, and put them in prison. They began with the writer, whom 
they stripped, and then set to work to describe flourishes on his back with 
a whip, asking him : 'Is the Tsar alive"? where is he 1 ?' Alexis was not 
used to this kind of penmanship. ' Mercy ! ' he cried, ' I will tell you 
where your Tsar is.' The flogging ceased. ' Fools ! ' said Alexis to the 
people, ' is it not a sin in you to treat me thus in the name of the emperor 1 
Do you not know him ] He is here ; he sees my punishment. There he 
stands ! He is not Nagoi, he is your Tsar. Slay him, together with us, if 
you please. He has assumed this disguise in order to learn from his own 
observation whether you are devoted to him.' The poor blockheads of 
Starodoub immediately fell on their knees before the impostor, exclaiming : 
' Lord ! we, are guilty ! but we swear to live and die for thee ! ' He was 
then led with great honours to the imperial palace. It was thus that 
Demetrius, slain at Moscow, came to life again in Starodoub." Baer, 
pp. 125, 126. About the same period it was believed, at the Vatican, that 
Demetrius was not dead. On the 12th of April, 1608, Cardinal Borghese 
wrote to Monsignore Simonetta, the Pope's nuncio in Poland : " Gli avvisi 



224 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



more bold, and made very numerous dupes. At Starodoub, 
an officer was introduced to him who had just arrived from 
Toula,whencehe had been sent by Bolotnikof to inform him of 
the desperate condition of the town. He was a Pole, named 
John Martinowicz Zarucki, a native of Tarnopol, destined 
to play no mean part at a time so favourable to adventurers. 
Carried away from his home while quite young by some 
Romanof Tartars, he had learned the practice of partisan war- 
fare from his barbarian captors. He left them to enrol him- 
self among the Don Cossacks, and as one of their atamans, 
he had fought bravely for the first Demetrius, and obtained 
from him the most signal marks of favour.* At Toula, he 
may perhaps have believed in the escape of his protector, 
but on his arrival at Starodoub, the first glance undeceived 
him ; nevertheless, without the slightest hesitation, he made 
a show of recognising the pretended Tsar, and this piece of 
complaisance gained him much gratitude from his new 
master.f As he was a man of resolution, and exempt, 
moreover, from those rare chivalric scruples which we meet 
with among some of the adventurers of this period, he 
became the minister of all those acts of violence and 
cruelty, which the other captains in the pay of the impostor 
refused to perform. 

Soon after, the pretender was joined by unexpected rein- 
forcements. There now flocked to his standard, not only 

della vita di Demetrio sono cosi uniformi, che si fa creder qui che non 
ingannino : " And on the 26th of the same month : " Viviamo qui quasi 
sicuri della vita di Demetrio." Tourghenief, Hist. Euss. Monim., vol. ii. 
p. 136. 

* Zolkiewski MSS., p. 198. 

f Baer, p. 126. This favour was sometimes disagreeable. Baer relates that, 
in order to put the fidelity of the people of Starodoub to a fresh trial, the 
impostor feigned, in atournament, to fall from his horse, wounded byZarucki's 
lance. Upon which the bystanders fell upon the favourite, and beat him 
unmercifully, so that he might have been killed, if the Tsar, getting up, 
had not declared that it had all been done by his order. Baer, p. 127. 



CHARACTER OF THE SECOND PRETENDER. 225 

bands of Cossacks and obscure deserters, but a brilliant 
troop of hussars, commanded by illustrious leaders, the 
Rozynskis, Sapiehas, Tiszkiewiczes, and Lissowskis, — 
the flower of Polish and Lithuanian chivalry. Prince 
Adam Wiszniowiecki, the first protector of Demetrius, led 
a band of two thousand horseman to the assistance of his 
successor.* 

The features of the new impostor probably presented some 
resemblance to those of the extraordinary man whom he 
aspired to replace ;f but he had turned the lessons of 
Miechawiecki to but little profit, for the most inattentive 
observer immediately noticed in him ignoble habits, vulgar 
language, crass ignorance, and the awkwardness of a peasant 
ill-at-ease in his borrowed clothes J. Some of the Poles 
imperfectly concealed their disgust, others laughed at his 
clumsiness, but no one, of the leaders, at least, was his dupe. 
All treated him, however, as a sovereign, but compelled this 
phantom of a Tsar to obey them in all things. The people, 
and especially the Cossacks, incompetent judges of court 
manners, no longer hesitated to receive as their master a 
man who came to them with so imposing an escort. It 
would have been enough for them, indeed, that he called 

* Baer, p. 134. 

+ It is very difficult to believe that the second impostor bore hardly the 
slightest resemblance to the first, and yet such is the conclusion which 
must inevitably result from a comparison of the descriptions of them both, 
as given in a note of Basil's Ambassadors at the Court of Warsaw. Let the 
reader judge. The first Demetrius is thus described : Complexion, white 
(or pale) ; hair, red ; nose, large and flat ; a wart near his nose ; neck, 
short ; no moustache or beard. Description of the second : Complexion, 
swarthy ; hair, black and curly ; nose, aquiline ; large falling eyebrows ; 
small eyes ; thick moustaches ; he looks upward ; he shaves off his beard ; 
a wart on his cheek. Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 324. It must be observed 
that this document is dated in December, 1606, and it is probable that the 
impostor who was then in Poland, was not the same person who afterwards 
appeared at Poutivle and Starodoub. 

$ Baer, pp. 124, 184 ; Maskiewicz, pp. 14, 15. 

l 3 



226 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



himself Demetrius, and showed them the way to Moscow 
— that town of revolutions, which they longed to chastise, 
that is, to pillage. According to Baer's view, the impostor 
was a kind of ecclesiastic, named Ivan, a native of Sokol, in 
White Russia, where he had exercised the profession of 
a schoolmaster ;* but, according to the evidence of several 
Polish historians, who were in a better position for ascertain- 
ing the truth, he was a Jew, who had been informed by 
Miechawiecki of the habits and manners of the first Deme- 
trius, and who possessed impudence enough to believe him- 
self capable of replacing him.f 

He resembled him in character in only one point, namely, 
his profuse liberality ; or rather, as the instrument of a set 
of avaricious captains, he could and dared refuse them 
nothing. He confiscated the lands of those gentlemen who 
remained faithful to Schuisky, and distributed them among 
his adherents ; sometimes bestowing them upon serfs of the 
original owners, when they took arms against their lords. 
The daughters of boyards were then frequently compelled 
to espouse peasants who had once been their slaves, but 
who were now ennobled by the usurper. The Poles and 
Germans, however, profited chiefly by his largesses. \ 

It is somewhat difficult to explain this sudden invasion of 
Polish adventurers, arriving in troops, or rather in armies, 
in Russia, and immediately rallying round an impostor who 
seems to have made not one of them his dupe. On the one 
hand, it appears that a large number of these volunteers 

* Baer, p. 124. 

f Note by M. Oustrialof on Baer, p. 124. It is believed that his iiame 
was Michael Moltchanof. He is mentioned by this name in a note delivered 
to the Diet of Poland, by order of Basil Schuisky, at the end of the year 
1606. As early as this, it appears that Moltchanof was being prepared for 
the part which he was destined to perform a few months later ; for his 
appearance at Poutivle occurred at the end of July, 1607. See the previous 
note on this subject. 

+ Baer, p. 135. 



INVASION OF POLISH ADVENTURERS. 



227 



were Confederates, as insurgent rebels were then termed in 
Poland, who had recently taken arms against Sigismund. 
Disgusted with their revolt, or satisfied with the concessions 
which they had obtained from their sovereign, they deter- 
mined to take advantage of their armament and organisation 
to throw themselves into Russia and seek their fortune. On 
the other hand, the narrative of the Moscow massacres had 
rekindled the old national animosity. Many a gentleman 
had a brother to revenge, or a relative to liberate from 
Schuisky's prisons. To men animated with such various 
feelings, all means seemed justifiable against their common 
enemy, the Tsar, and they did not hesitate to become accom- 
plices in a shameful and bungling imposture. Prince 
Shakhofskoi seems to have been its inventor, but it is not 
known who made choice of the man selected to personate 
Demetrius, or what qualities were discovered in him which 
seemed to adapt him to the purpose which he was destined 
to fulfil. According to all appearance, Sigismund was not 
ignorant of these intrigues, and perhaps he had a greater 
share in them than is generally ascribed to him. Full of 
ambition, and already meditating vast schemes of conquest, he 
rejoiced to behold the progress made by a phantom sovereign, 
whom he could replunge into obscurity whenever Russia, 
exhausted by civil war, should be unable to defend herself 
against foreign aggression. 

After the capture of Toula, Basil had dismissed the greater 
part of his troops, but the alarming progress of the new 
impostor compelled him to re-collect them in all haste. He 
entrusted the command to his brother Demetrius Schuisky, 
a general as unlucky as he was unskilful ; for Michael 
Skopin, the idol of the soldiers, gave him umbrage, and new 
disasters were necessary before he restored to him his confi- 
dence. The army of the impostor was commanded by 
Prince Roman Rozynski, a veteran warrior, who had long 



228 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



been accustomed to fight against the Muscovites. Arriving 
with numerous troops, and preceded by his great military 
reputation, Rozynski had assumed from the first the tone of 
a master ; and, as if to show his comrades what he was 
capable of doing, he began by killing Miechawiecki with his 
own hand,* because the pretended Tsar had appointed him 
his Hetman,f or generalissimo. Such an act could do him 
no harm in such an army as that of the impostor ; and 
accordingly, we find that he was, by unanimous consent, 
acknowledged as its commander-in-chief. On the 24th of 
April, 1608, he attacked the Muscovites near Volkhof. 
One charge of the Polish hussars was sufficient to scatter the 
Russian line, especially as it was weakened by the cowardice 
or treachery of the German auxiliaries. J All who escaped 
from the lances of the Poles and Cossacks, fled in disorder 
to Moscow, and it is believed that if the conqueror had 
pushed boldly forward, the capital would have fallen into 
his hands. Perhaps the Polish captains who directed his 
movements may have had their own secret intentions ; and 
probably they did not wish the second Demetrius to become 
as powerful as the first. Possibly, indeed — and this is the 
likeliest supposition of all — they feared that the rich capital 
of Russia would be given up to pillage, which is always more 

* It is unknown whether he slew him in a duel, in a quarrel, or by treachery ; 
all three cases were probable and possible, with a man like Rozynski. The 
language of Kobierzycki on the subject is very obscure, thanks to the 
flowers of his rhetoric : " Mox ipse subsecutus (Romanus, dux Rozynius) 
ob spectafcam fortitudinem probatamque in rebus bellicis dexteritatem, 
oblatam sibi a Demetrio ac omnium unanimi consensu militaris imperii 
summam accepit : non tamen absque flagitio, quippe Miechowitium, virum 
strenuum ac bellicosum, regendo prius exercitui prefectum, interfecit : 
post, cruore semuli, cui subesse nollet, madentem dexteram regimini 
admovit." — Kobierzycki, Hist. Vladislai, p. 90. Compare Oustrialof, 
note 17 : Maskiewicz, p. 182 ; Baer, p. 134. 

f A Polish word, which must not be confounded with ataman, the 
name of the Cossack chiefs. 

X Baer, p. 236. 



CAMP AT TOUCHINO. 



229 



profitable to the soldiers than to the generals.* However this 
may be, instead of closely pursuing the consternated enemy, 
they halted their victorious bands at Touchino, a village 
twelve versts from Moscow. The impostor made this place 
his head-quarters during seventeen months, and held his 
court there. Hence the name of Bandit of Touchino^ by 
which he is generally designated by Russian historians.f 

The camp at Touchino, which soon became a town, 
contained nearly a hundred thousand men. Numerous 
foraging parties were sent out daily to levy contributions 
from the surrounding country, to sack villages and burn 
the residences of nobles and gentlemen. An immense 
quantity of cattle were seized, " and the dogs, " says a 
chronicler, "were so gorged with meat that they refused to 
eat the entrails and offal of the animals slain for the savage 
festivals of this innumerable army. Beer was a beverage 
disdained by the common soldiers of the Polish bands, 
who intoxicated themselves with nothing less costly than 
hydromel." \ The report of this life of pillage and debau- 
chery attracted to Touchino all sorts of marauders from 
various Slavonic countries : Poles, Cossacks, and Zapo- 
rogues hastened to enrol themselves under the standards of a 
Tsar who allowed his soldiers every license. 

Moscow trembled, expecting terrible chastisement. 
Reduced to despair, Schuisky was utterly afraid to try 

* According to Baer, the Pretender himself kept back the Polish 
captains, by telling them : " If you burn my capital, if you pillage my 
treasure, what shall I have left to reward you with 1 " It seems to me 
very improbable that such an argument would have stopped the Poles, 
who placed very little confidence in his promises, and who relied far more 
on the power of their arms than on the gratitude of the pretended Tsar. 
See Baer, p. 139. 

f ToucMnskii vor. He is also called the Bandit of Kalouga, on account 
of the long stay which he made in that town, after the camp at Touchino 
had been broken up. 

X Baer, p. 147. 



230 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



once more the fortune of arms ; and, shut up within 
entrenchments constructed under the very walls of his 
capital, he laboured unremittingly to strengthen his posi- 
tion by new fortifications. He kept around him a small 
number of troops upon whose fidelity he could still rely, 
as a last resource to keep the populace in order ; who, 
as usual in cases of public calamity, were ever ready to 
make their rulers responsible for the misfortunes they 
endured. Some contemporary authors accuse Basil of 
acting with unparalleled cruelty to those of the rebels who 
fell into his hands, and more particularly to those of his 
adherents against whom his suspicions were aroused. Baer, 
a writer who must be read with caution, on account of his 
prejudices against the superstitions of the Russians, relates 
that, in order to guard his camp against the attacks of the 
enemy, Tsar Basil, by the advice of his magicians, ordered 
pregnant women to be disembowelled of their offspring, and 
the hearts of horses to be torn from the living animals, for 
the purpose of making horrible incantations. " Never will 
the Poles or their horses be able to cross the circle around 
which these bleeding remains have been strewn. " Such 
was the oracle of the soothsayers of Moscow, but it did not 
prevent deserters from crossing this circle by hundreds 
every day, on their way to the camp at Touchino. * Basil, 
however, adopted a surer method of stopping the progress 
of the enemy. He concluded a treaty with the King of 
Sweden, who, for certain concessions of territory and a large 
sum of money, sent him an auxiliary army of five thousand 
men, commanded by Jacques Pontus de la Gardie, that 
general whom Gustavus Adolphus afterwards called his 
master in the art of war. Guided by this able captain, and 
supported by a body of veteran auxiliaries, Michael Skopin 
resumed the command of the Muscovite army. 

* Baer, p. HI. 



LIBERATION OF MNISZEK. 



231 



The successive revolts of the principal towns of the 
empire had made Basil aware that he would be sure of his 
prisoners and hostages only by detaining them at Moscow, 
as it were under his own eyes. In fact, the capital, guilty 
of the massacre of the Poles, and threatened with terrible 
reprisals, was the only town in his dominions which he could 
believe beyond the reach of the enemy's seductive influence. 
He had therefore ordered that Mniszek, Marina, and his 
other Polish prisoners of distinction, should be brought back 
to Moscow. Soon after, in the hope of inducing Sigismund 
to recall the volunteers in the service of Demetrius, he 
attempted to disarm the resentment of his captives, and even 
to make them his protectors in this pressing emergency. In 
addition to their liberty, he offered them compensation for 
the losses they had experienced,* contenting himself with 
exacting from them a promise never to bear arms against 
Russia, or to favour the new impostor in any way whatever. 
Thus, after having set at nought the most solemn oaths, Basil 
believed that he would find, in men whom he had so deeply 
offended, scruples of which he had never himself been 
conscious. However, with excess of precaution, after he 
had received the oaths of Mniszek and his family, he gave 
them an escort, and indicated the route which they were to 
follow in their journey into Poland, endeavouring to remove 
them as far as possible from the posts occupied by the 
rebels, f But however closely guarded the prisoners might 
have been, they had never ceased to receive more or less 
exact reports of the events which were taking place in 
Russia. | Among the persons in Marina's suite, no doubt 
was entertained that Demetrius was still alive. The Polish 

* Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. p. 335. The losses suffered by Mniszek are 
estimated in the memorandum which he drew up at 154,604 Polish florins, 
nearly 25,000?. 

+ Zolkiewski, p. 23. 

J See the Journals of Marina, and of the Ambassadors. 



232 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



Jesuits gave currency to this report throughout all Europe, 
and it is possible that Mniszek himself may for some time 
have believed that his son-in-law had again escaped the 
assassin's steel. During the parleys which preceded his 
liberation, as he was less strictly guarded, he obtained more 
precise information, and even received a letter from the 
impostor, beseeching him to repair with his daughter to the 
camp at Touchino. Singularly enough, not only did the 
new pretender not take the trouble to imitate in this letter 
the signature of the first Demetrius, but he seems to have 
been ignorant even of the forms habitually observed by his 
predecessor in his correspondence with his father-in-law. * 
It is unaccountable that Miechawiecki should not have 
taken greater care to avoid such blunders. In truth, 
however, they were of no consequence, for the impostor 
could not hope to deceive the Palatine of Sendomir for 
any length of time : the most important matter was, to enter 
into arrangements with him. The false Demetrius hoped 
he would succeed in this, and his letter contained the 
following remarkable sentence, from which we learn upon 
what feelings he based his hopes. " Come to me," he 
wrote, "instead of going to hide yourself in Poland, in 
order to fly from the contempt of the world. " -f 

While thus expressing himself, the impostor was ignorant 
whether Marina would really be free to choose between a 
possible throne and a quiet retreat in her own country ; he 
did not even know whether his emissaries would be able, in 
spite of the precautions taken by Basil, to join her before 
she had crossed the Polish frontier. J At all hazards, how- 

* Compare the fac-similes of the signatures in Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. 

+ Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii., p. 336 ; Letter from the second Demetrius to 
Mniszek, August 22, 1608. 

J In the same letter the impostor complains that traitors had prevented 
an attempt for their deliverance. 



MARINA JOINS THE IMPOSTOR. 



233 



ever, he had dispatched a strong detachment of cavalry, 
commanded by two Polish Panes, to stop her on her jour- 
ney. By the favour of fortune, or perhaps in consequence 
of information received through Marina's emissaries,* these 
two officers succeeded in meeting the Muscovite escort, cut 
it to pieces, and liberated the Palatine and his daughter. 
The conference with Marina and her father, must, I think, 
have been a strange scene. To refuse the offers of the 
impostor, was to unmask him in the view of all Russia, 
and perhaps to expose herself to his vengeance.f It was 
undoubtedly a dreadful thing to share the couch of a ban- 
dit ; but that bandit might give her a diadem : so Marina 
accepted. It would be pleasant to believe that on this occa- 
sion she sacrificed herself for her father ; but everything 
combines to prove that, on the contrary, it was in spite of 
the representations of Mniszek, and even in opposition to 
his express wish, that she determined to accept the offers of 
the Brigand of Touchino. Not only do most Polish histo- 
rians blame and deplore her ambition, but the very letters 
of Marina herself, which exist at the present day, render it 
indubitable that her choice was perfectly free and spon- 
taneous. The repentance which she expresses to her father 
excludes the idea of an act of filial devotedness. It is also 
quite as difficult to suppose that she was actuated by motives 
of soaring ambition. She was neither a Semiramis nor a 
Catherine II. — this young woman, who caused her first 
husband the greatest embarrassment on such trivial matters 
as a court-dress or a cook's ability. In the dignity of 
Tsarina, the principal attraction was to her the diamonds 

* Zolkiewski, p. 23. 
+ We must not, however, exaggerate this danger. The two commanders 
of the detachment, the Panes Zborowski and Stadnicki were brave gentle- 
men, who certainly would not have maltreated Mniszek ; and it is doubtful 
whether, at Touchino, the impostor would have dared to resort to violence 
in the presence of Rozynski, Sapieha, and the other Polish Captains. 



234 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



and robes of brocade which she would wear ; and, destitute 
of all noble pride, she had only just enough vanity to ren- 
der her afraid to reappear in Poland before the eyes of her 
companions, whose envy she had, a few months before, so 
powerfully excited. The impostor had touched the right 
chord, by representing to her the shame and ridicule which 
awaited her at Sendomir; and she preferred to proceed to 
the camp at Touchino. 

Nevertheless, she had her scruples ; and she stipulated — 
at least, so we are assured — that a secret marriage should 
be celebrated, and that the new Demetrius should not claim 
marital rights until he had regained the crown of the 
Tsars.* This condition, though immediately accepted, was 

* Baer, pp. 140, 153 ; Maskiewicz, p. 14. I have formed my idea of the 
character which I have just delineated from a perusal of the letters of 
Marina to Mniszek. A very literal translation of two of these letters will 
enable the reader to appreciate the justness of my conjectures. A spoiled 
child, brought up at a brilliant court, Marina keenly felt her change of 
fortune ; her vanity, however, inspires her with a sort of apathetic 
resignation, which is at times disturbed by recollections of her family and 
her younger days : — 

No. 1 . " Very gracious lord and father, with the most humble respect 
I present myself for your pardon. I know not what to write to you in 
the grief which I feel, as much on account of your departure, which 
leaves me here at such a moment, my gracious lord and father, as because 
I did not ask you, as I should have wished to do, as I had hoped to 
obtain it, for a blessing from your paternal mouth. But, surely, I was not 
worthy of it. Now, by this letter, falling at your feet, I beg you fh'st of 
all with tears, that if ever I have caused you any displeasure by im- 
prudence, youthful folly, or any bad passion whatever, you will deign to 
pardon me, my gracious lord and father, and send your paternal benedic- 
tion to your daughter who remains in isolation and desolation. I shall 
honour it as the greatest happiness. I humbly beseech you not to forget 
me, any more than the affairs that I have in Poland, and that you were 
unable to terminate before your departure. When you write to the Tsar, 
remember me, that I may receive from him grace and honour ; and for 
my part, my dear father and lord, I promise to do all that you desire, and 
to conduct myself according to your commands. Komorski does not 
leave yet, and I think that his journey is delayed, until it is decided 
whether he shall quit the Tsar. It is clear that it is not easy to quit him 



LETTERS 01' MARINA. 



235 



not observed ; for Marina had a son, and re-entered Moscow 
in chains. As for Mniszek, he kept the promise he had 
made to Basil : and, though he did not completely cease all 
connection with his daughter, he seems at least to have felt 

so soon. I beg you, my dear father, to send me twelve ells of black 
velvet for a summer dress for Lent. (The Russian Lent. Probably she 
played the same comedy at Touchino as at Moscow, and the false Deme- 
trius compelled her to observe the rites of the Greek Church.) 

" "Written from the camp before Moscow (Touchino), Jan. 26, 1609. 

" Marina, Tsarina of Muscovy." 

" P. S. My very dear father, I have neither trunk nor casket. I beg you 
to send me some this winter. I will send you all the affairs communicated 
to me by my brother, with a statement." 

No. 2. " Very gracious lord and father ! with the expression of my 
most humble respect, I ardently offer myself to your paternal mercy. 

" For a very long time I entertained the hope that you had left Russia 
in safety and good health, and rejoined my beloved mother. Now, I have 
learned that you have not yet arrived at home. This disturbs and 
astonishes me. I do not yet know with certainty where and in what 
position you are. I suppose that you have been detained, either by your 
duties at the Diet, or by the orders of His Majesty. For this reason, 
I beseech you very humbly by your love for me, do not fail to inform me 
of your own position, and particularly of the affairs of Russia. They 
depend upon your efforts, and therein all my hope lies. I wish, my dear 
father, I could give you some good and prosperous news, but I have 
nothing to tell you, except that affairs are in the state in which you saw 
them. The Polish army has stopped for a time. It is in want of pay, 
until it please God to bring about the desired conclusion. The Hetman 
(General Rozynski) was wounded in an affair near Moscow, but thank God ! 
he is in no danger. I must tell you that I am in good health ; and, 
offering myself with affection to your love and fatherly goodness, I 
humbly beg you not to deprive me of them. 

" From the camp before Moscow, March 23, 1609. 

" Marina, Tsarina of Muscovy." 

Into the above letter the following note seems to have been slipped 
furtively : — 

" I do not know what to tell you about our affairs, except that there is 
delay from day to day, and no likelihood of ending it. I am treated just as 
I was when you were here, but not as was promised at the moment of your 
departure. (Is not this an allusion to the promise exacted from the 
impostor, and mentioned by Baer and Maskiewicz?) I would write to 



236 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



nothing but aversion for his new son-in-law. Disgusted 
with Russia, and lamenting perhaps his own ambitious 
dreams, he hastened to return into Poland, and hence- 
forward took no active part in political affairs."* 

The arrival of Marina in the camp of Touchino, followed 
by the feigned recognition of the pretended husband and 
"wife, in presence of the whole army, was a mere imitation 
of the interview between the first Demetrius and the Tsarina 
Marfa. The spectators of this farce were, however, as 
complaisant as the Muscovites had been ; and it gained the 
impostor many new recruits, f Poor Marina must, never- 
theless, have felt severely the change in her fortune. Neither 
salvoes of artillery nor cheers from the multitude were want- 
ing, as if to remind her of her triumphal entry into Moscow 
three years before. But at Touchino, instead of a brilliant 
court, she found a den of marauders, the scene of ignoble 
orgies ; instead of nobles anxious to do her service, she was 
surrounded by fierce soldiers, or what was sadder still for 
her, by a host of Polish gentlemen, whose ironical respect 
seemed to her the most poignant reproaches ; finally, instead 

you at more length, but the chamberlain cannot wait, and I write in haste. 
I cannot send you any of my servants, for it would be necessary to supply 
them with food, and I have no means to do so. I remember, my dear 
father, the good salmons that used to be cooked at your house, and the 
good old wine that we drank. Here, I have neither. If you have any, 
I very humbly pray you to send me some." 

Both these autograph letters are preserved in the Imperial Archives at 
Moscow. Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. pp. 350, 359. 

* There exist in the collection of Imperial Archives several deeds of 
gift by the second Demetrius to Mniszek, but, in addition to the fact that 
these gifts are illusory, being made subject to the restoration of the 
pretended Tsar, there is nothing to indicate a continuous correspondence 
between the father and son-in-law, such as was kept up in the time of the 
first Demetrius. It cannot be said that Mniszek ceased from all commu- 
nication with his daughter, but not one of his letters has been preserved ; 
and we have seen that Marina complains of not having received any news 
of him. f Baer, p. 141. 



POSITION AND INFLUENCE OF MARINA. 237 

of a dashing young hero bent upon pleasing her, she was 
received by a vulgar brigand, the puppet of ambitious 
intriguers. Marina's heart contained sufficiently delicate 
sentiments to feel all the bitterness of her lot, but at the 
same time vanity enough to make her endure it with cou- 
rage and resignation. Sometimes she was actuated by 
ambitious impulses, which inspired her with the energy and 
address necessary to sway her new husband, and to elevate 
him for a moment in the eyes of his wild companions ; but 
these generous emotions were as fleeting as her whims ; and 
ere long, despairing of being able to make a king of the 
accomplice to whom fortune had bound her, she relapsed 
into a state of apathetic discouragement. Nevertheless, the 
alliance of Marina with the impostor was not without 
importance in regard to the destiny of Russia. Previously, 
he had been a mere instrument in the hands of the Polish 
generals ; and with the submission and docility of a beggar 
in the presence of princes and gentlemen, he had long 
obeyed them in all things. Now that he was married to a 
noble lady, he became more proud, and began to perceive 
that he might prove a personage of distinction. His tutors 
soon found him less tractable and obedient : but unfor- 
tunately, whenever he insisted upon exercising his power, it 
was to ordain the infliction of punishments. Marina some- 
times succeeded in softening his brutal nature, and her 
prayers and tears often saved the lives of unfortunates 
whom he had doomed to a cruel death. 

We have seen that, instead of attacking Moscow after 
the victory of Volkhof, the Polish generals had contented 
themselves with blockading it. Their plan was to starve it 
into a surrender by seizing, or rather devastating, the 
neighbouring towns. Among the most important places in 
central Russia, at this period, was the Convent of St. Sergius 
of Tro'itsa, which possessed a hundred thousand peasants, 



2S8 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



was inhabited by a numerous community, and contained 
inestimable treasures of gold and precious stones, with 
which the Tsars had delighted to adorn the church. Founded 
in the fourteenth century, restored and enlarged in the 
fifteenth, the convent of St. Sergius had become a kind of 
town or citadel, surrounded by deep trenches, and flanked 
by lofty towers, which could, in case of necessity, contain a 
strong garrison. This monastery, was, moreover, the most 
venerated sanctuary of Russian orthodoxy. The piety of 
its monks, and the learning of its abbots, were celebrated 
throughout the whole empire. Thence issued incessant 
manifestoes, calling upon the people to rise in defence of 
their religion, and of Moscow, the holy city. The monks 
of Troitsa had launched anathemas against the first Deme- 
trius for having wedded a Catholic wife, and plotted the 
ruin of the Greek Church. No less ardent in their 
animosity to the new impostor, they never ceased to exhort 
the faithful to arm against him and his heretic allies, who 
pillaged the churches, and profaned the tombs of the saints. 
At all times, with the Muscovite nation, attachment to 
their religion has been intimately connected with love of 
their country. Troitsa was in some sort its religious capital, 
or, to quote the expression of one of its pious cenobites, it 
was " the sun which enlightened Russia." * The support 
of the monks of St. Sergius was worth more than an army 
to Basil ; for, in addition to considerable subsidies, he 
received from it a moral force which retained the largest 
and most sensible part of the nation in their allegiance. 
The loss of such auxiliaries would have consummated his 
ruin ; and therefore the capture of this monastery was of 
extreme importance to the impostor. The hope of immense 
booty would be sufficient to induce his army to march 
against the Convent of St. Sergius; but it was, moreover, of 



* Palifcsyne, p. 58. 



SIEGE OF TROITSA. 



239 



great political importance to make himself master of it, and 
to take revenge upon its inhabitants. Finally, it had 
become necessary to divide his troops. Dissensions had 
arisen among the Polish generals. Each had his band of 
volunteers, who refused to obey any one but the captain of 
their choice. Rozynski was invested with the title of 
Hetman, or generalissimo, but his authority was inces- 
santly called in question. The most powerful of his rivals 
was John Sapieha ; and their quarrels became so frequent, 
that it was found necessary to divide the army between 
them.* Sapieha left Touchino with thirty thousand men 
and sixty cannon to lay siege to Tro'ftsa, whilst Rozynski 
remained encamped before Moscow. 

The Poles marched with full confidence against the 
monastery of St. Sergius, ignorant of the prodigies to which 
religious enthusiasm can give rise. In vain, during six 
weeks, did their artillery thunder against the convent, and 
riddle it with balls ; in vain did they redouble their attacks 
— the garrison stood firm. The monks might be seen 
mingling with the soldiers, and sharing in their dangers 
and fatigues. With the cross in their hands, they pushed 
down the ladders of the besiegers, repaired the breaches 
in spite of the enemy^s fire, tended the wounded, confessed 
the dying, and inspired all with contempt for death. Monks 
and soldiers, all fought in full assurance of victory. In 
their dreams or pious ecstasies, they beheld St. Sergius and 
St. Nikon, the patrons of the monastery, who revealed to 
them the plans of their enemies, and suggested the means of 
frustrating them.f Neither superiority of numbers, nor tac- 
tics, nor even courage regulated by discipline, could triumph 
over these men, who rushed headlong into the thickest of 
the danger, burning to gain the palm of martyrdom. 
Whilst Sapieha was exhausting his strength in useless efforts 



* Zolkiewski MSS., p. 42. f Palitsyne, pp. 81, 89, 137. 



240 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



against the Convent of St. Sergius, the peasants, reduced 
to misery and despair by the pillage of their cattle and the 
conflagration of their houses, formed themselves on every 
side into armed bands, which intercepted the convoys of the 
invaders, and massacred their escorts. Woe to the Poles 
who fell into the hands of these men, exasperated by the 
excess of their misfortunes ! The peasants made holes in 
the ice which covered the rivers, into which they threw 
their enemies alive. " Drown, ye rascals ! " they cried ; 
" you have eaten our oxen and our calves, now ye shall eat 
our fish." * 

These partisan troops were soon supported by a more 
formidable army. In the beginning of the year 1609, 
Michael Skopin, and Jacques de la Gardie commenced a 
brilliant campaign in the north of Russia. Schooled by 
their foreign auxiliaries, the Muscovites had made rapid 
progress in the art of war. In order to guard his young 
infantry against the irresistible charges of the Polish cavalry, 
Skopin had contrived wooden fortresses mounted on wheels, 
in which a small number of arquebusiers were posted, who, 
firing under cover, could maintain a murderous volley 
against the enemy's ranks. t In a few months, the war had 
entirely changed its aspect. The Poles and partisans of 
the Tsar of Touchino were beaten in several encounters. 
A number of towns returned to their allegiance. A severe 
famine was beginning to be felt in Moscow; but victory 
restored abundance. The provinces which were on the 
point of revolting, now sent subsidies and recruits to Skopin's 
army. Finally, Sapieha himself was defeated in a hard- 
fought battle near the convent of Koliazin, J and compelled 
to raise the siege of Troitsa ; followed by an army decimated 
by disease and the sword, he hastily took refuge within the 
walls of Dmitrof. Skopin returned in triumph to Moscow, 



* Baer, p. 151. f Zolkiewski MSS., p. 74. 



$ Baer, p. 155. 



DEATH OF SKOPIN SCHUISKY. 



241 



amid the acclamations of the people, who were intoxicated 
by his successes. At first, Basil proved grateful and lavish 
of rewards to the generals who had so gloriously re- 
established his authority in a great part of his empire ; but 
the love and respect which the Muscovites displayed towards 
Skopin, quickly aroused, it is said, his jealousy and hatred. 
In that young man, so brave, so intelligent, so successful in 
all his undertakings, he saw a pretender to the throne, and 
a pretender worthy to obtain it. Thenceforward, he 
studiously endeavoured to deprive him of all opportunities 
of acquiring new glory. Affecting to overwhelm him with 
honours, he detained him at a distance from his army, and 
found a thousand pretexts for keeping him at Moscow, as it 
were under his own personal surveillance. Two months 
after his return, Skopin was attacked by a sudden illness, 
and died on the 23rd of April, 1610, at the age of less than 
twenty-four years. At Moscow and throughout the empire 
his death was deeply and sincerely regretted ; even the 
Poles themselves took their part in the general mourning, 
for none, whether friends or enemies, could have known 
Skopin without esteeming him.* The jealousy with which 
the Tsar regarded him was well known, and public rumour 
accused him of having, by poison, shortened the life of the 
young hero who had served him too successfully. It is the 
fate of despots to be made responsible for all events that can 
be explained by a crime.t 

* Zolkiewski MSS., p. 41. 
f According to the Letopis o Miatejakh, p. 177, Skopin was poisoned 
by bis aunt Catherine, the wife of Demetrius Schuisky. Palitsyne, p. 203, 
suspects the commission of a crime, but does not indicate its author. 
Baer, p. 167, and the author of -the Chronicle of Pskof (quoted by 
Karamzin, vol. xii. p. 166, and note 524), formally accuse Tsar Basil. 
Zolkiewski, p. 63, says that Skopin died of fever, but that Basil was 
generally suspected of having poisoned him. 



242 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



CHAPTER XII. 



INVASION OF RUSSIA BY SIGISMUND. — HIS PRETENSIONS TO THE THRONE. — HIS 
HETMAN ZOLKIE WSKI. — SIEGE OF SMOLENSKO. — THE POLES DESERT DEME- 
TRIUS. — HIS FLIGHT TO KALOUGA. — DEVOTEDNESS OF MARINA. — FERO- 
CIOUS CRUELTY OF DEMETRIUS. — RUSSIA IN 1610. — THE WHITE TSAR. — 
BASIL SENDS AN ARMY AGAINST SIGISMUND. — EXPLOITS OF ZOLKIEWSKI. — 
BATTLE OF KLOUCHINO. 

The death of Skopin deprived Russia of her only captain, 
at a moment when his services had become most necessary 
to her safety. It was in vain that the false Demetrius daily 
lost some of his prestige, and that the rebellion, thoroughly 
stifled in the north, was on the decline in the south of the 
Empire : a new adversary suddenly entered the lists to give 
a death-stroke to unfortunate Basil. 

V\ hen Sigismund was informed of the death of the first 
Demetrius and of the massacre of the Poles at Moscow, he 
was too much occupied by the Confederation of Sendomir 
to think of interfering in the affairs of Russia, but he did 
not on that account cease to maintain an active correspon- 
dence with several boyards whom he had bribed or seduced, 
and to recruit partisans, in anticipation of the day when he 
would be able to give full scope to his ambitious projects. 
Meanwhile, he had listened to the explanations of the 
Russian ambassadors regarding the Moscow riots ; he had 
even signified his answer by an embassy to Basil, and nothing 



DESIGNS OF SIGISMUND. 243 

in his language announced that he entertained hostile designs 
against Russia. But, when the Confederation was dissolved 
Sigismund, finding himself at the head of a powerful army, 
as it generally happens after a civil war, thought the 
moment had arrived for realising the dream of Stephen 
Battory no longer by a compromise, but by a conquest, 
pretexts for which were not wanting. The Varangian 
dynasty was extinct in Russia, and Sigismund, a descendant 
on his mother's side from the Jagellon family, might lay 
claim to inherit the vacant throne. On their return from 
Moscow, his ambassadors described to him the deplorable 
condition of Russia : weakened by two years of incessant 
revolt and pillage, hating Schuisky, and despising the false 
Demetrius, the Empire was ready, they said, to rally round 
any prince who would restore to it order and tranquillity. 
At the same time, several Russian noblemen confirmed these 
reports, and announced that young Prince Ladislaus, the son 
of the King of Poland, was appointed by public opinion to 
become the saviour of their unhappy country : and that, as 
soon as he made his appearance, all parties would rally round 
him. It is even stated that Basil Schuisky, doubtless at the 
time when the successes of Demetrius had reduced him to 
despair, offered to Sigismund to abdicate in favour of the 
Prince Royal of Poland, provided that he would deliver 
Russia from the Bandit of Touchino.* If this offer was 

* Baer, p. 149. According to this author, this overture was made 
either at the end of 1609, or at the beginning of 1610. He states, 
however, that Basil promised to abdicate in favour of Sigismund himself. 
Zolkiewski says that these offers were made to Ladislaus even before the 
death of the first Demetrius, and that they were renewed to Sigismund's 
ambassadors, at Moscow, by several boyards, among whom was Demetrius 
Schuisky, the brother of the Tsar. He adds, it is true, that subsequently 
Demetrius Schuisky, in presence of Zolkiewski himself, denied ever 
having used such language. Zolkiewski refers to the archives of the Royal 
Chancery, but I am not aware that anything has been found in them to 
substantiate a formal proposition. See the Zolkiewski MSS , p. 24, et seq. 



244 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



really made, its sincerity is very open to doubt ; but it bore 
witness to the distress of the Tsar, and his inability to 
maintain his authority. All Sigismund's uncertainty 
ceased. He manifested sudden indignation at the massacre 
of his subjects at Moscow, and announced his intention to 
take full revenge for their death. At the same time, he 
revived the pretensions of Poland to the duchy of Smolensko ; 
but, for the present, he refrained from open allusion to 
other pretensions, which were personal to himself. The 
Diet shared in the warlike tendencies of the King : * every 
preparation was made for the war, or rather for an expedition 
which was then regarded as a mere military excursion ; and 
at the end of September, 1609, whilst Skopin and La 
Gardie were pursuing their conquests in the north of Russia, 
Sigismund appeared suddenly before Smolensko, at the 
head of an army of twelve thousand men.t 

He had with him as Hetman or Crown-general, Stanislaus 
Zolkiewski, an old warrior, a pupil of Battory, who had 
been maimed in many a fight, and who, at sixty years of age, 
combined the energy and boldness of a young man with the 
most consummate prudence, and the ablest strategy. J 
Zolkiewski disapproved of the expedition against Smolensko. 
In his opinion, the Muscovite territory should have been 
entered through Severia ; and, after having traversed 
unopposed the provinces which were already occupied by 
the Polish troops in the pay of the impostor, his plan was 

Lubienski, the author of a Memoir on the motives which induced Sigismund 
to invade Eussia, makes no mention of the pretended offers of Schuisky : 
« Quare multi," he says, " iique primarii viri egerunt cum legatis atque 
aliis Polonis, quos Suiscius sero ductus poenitentia e vinculis dimittebat, 
suaderent Regise Majestati ut ad capessendum Moschoviticum imperium, 
extincta veterum Russise ducuni stirpe, illi ipsi maternum genus secundum 
Jagellonicam domum ex eadem gente ducenti, debitum animum adjiceret." 
Lubienski, p. 156. 

* Zolkiewski MSS., p. 30. t Maskiewicz, p. 16. 

+ He was born in 1547. A wound in the leg had lamed him. 



S1GISMUND INVADES RUSSIA. 



245 



to march rapidly upon Moscow, and proclaim Ladislaus. 
But his advice was not taken : the Potockis, his declared 
opponents, induced the King to adopt another course, by 
promising that Smolensko would surrender without striking 
a blow. But Sigismund soon discovered that the discourage- 
ment of the Muscovites had been greatly exaggerated. 
Though bad soldiers in the open field, they could fight 
bravely behind their walls ; indomitable obstinacy stood 
them instead of military science, and, in order to carry 
a breach, it was necessary to pass over the body of 
the last of its defenders. Besides, there was in Smolensko, 
as voyvode, a man of good head and sound heart, named 
Michael Scliefn, who cared as little for the threats as for 
the temptations of the Poles. After several ineffectual 
attacks, irritated by a resistance which he had not antici- 
pated, Sigismund forgot all the interests of his policy in 
order to obtain the satisfaction of triumphing in this kind 
of duel between Sebein and himself. This duel lasted 
nearly three years. 

The Polish king's invasion caused no less alarm to Basil 
than to the false Demetrius, and both attempted vainly to 
enter into negotiations with their new enemy. But soon, 
the successes of Skopin restored a little courage to the Tsar, 
and he grew still more bold when he saw that the first effect 
of Sigismund's intervention was to compel the Bandit of 
Touchino to break up the blockade of Moscow. In fact, 
on his arrival in the Russian dominions, the Polish king had 
issued orders to all his subjects in the service of the impostor, 
to abandon that man, and join the army before Smolensko. 
To the exiled volunteers, who had formerly been Confeder- 
ates, and who had borne arms against him, he offered a 
complete amnesty ; and to all, he promised advantageous 
pay. His letters, when brought into Touchino by Polish 
officers, and communicated with some mystery to Rozynski, 



246 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



awakened the anxiety of the pretended Demetrius. Marina 
had vainly attempted to interest the Pope^ nuncio in Poland 
on behalf of her husband ; her endeavours had been useless, 
and the impostor had derived as little advantage from giving 
the province of Smolensko to his father-in-law Mniszek.* A 
few days after the arrival of Sigismund's envoys, surprised 
that they had not yet been presented to him, he went alone 
to RozynskPs tent, and met him as he w as rising from table, 
quite drunk, according to the custom of Northern warriors 
at this period. Demetrius had no sooner explained the 
object of his visit, than the Pole angrily replied: " Meddle 
with your own affairs, scoundrel ! The deuce knows who 
you are. We have now been fighting for you a long while, 
and we have yet to wait the realisation of your fine promises/" 
The pretended Tsar returned in alarm to Marina, and 
falling at her feet, said to her with tears : " Either Rozynski 
must die or I must perish He has treated me in such a 
manner that / should be unworthy to behold thine eyes, if I 
did not take signal vengeance upon the traitor. He is 
assuredly plotting some perfidy against us, in concert with 
his King. I leave this camp, where I am in his power; but 
do thou, dear wife, remain, and may God help thee ! V Upon 
this, he assumed the dress of a peasant, mounted a dung- 
cart, and rode to Kalouga, accompanied only by his buffoon 
Kochelef. No one in the camp could tell, at first, what had 
become of him, and the general opinion was, that the Polish 
commanders had secretly put him to death, in order to rid 
themselves of a phantom sovereign of whom they were 
beginning to feel ashamed.t 

The impostor continued his flight without stopping, until 

* Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. pp. 340, 349, 362. The gift of Smolensko to 
Mniszek, was probably suggested by the hope that Sigismund would raise 
the siege of that town, now that it had become the property of one of his 
vassals. + Baer, p. 158, et seq. 



HIS FLIGHT TO KALOUGA. 



247 



he reached the gates of Kalouga. There, from the convent 
at which he halted, he hastily wrote the following procla- 
mation, and ordered it to be distributed among the inhabi- 
tants : 16 The pagan king* demands of me Smolensko and 
Severia, saying that it is a town belonging to him ; but I 
will not cede it to him, lest paganism should take root 
therein. Wherefore Sigismund, to destroy me, has gained 
over my general Rozynski and the Poles of my army ; but 
you, men of Kalouga, answer me, will you be faithful to 
me ? If you swear to serve me, I will come and live among 
you, and with the aid of God, and of St. Nicholas, and the 
forces of many good towns which hold out for me, I hope to 
avenge myself both on Schuisky and on the perfidious 
Poles. I am ready to die for the faith. Second my efforts: 
let us arm against heresy. Let us not yield to the King of 
Poland either a house or a plank, still less a town or a 
province." t Thus both the men who were contending for 
the throne of Russia used the same language. Each on his 
side sought to excite the religious passions of the people, 
and identified his cause with the national religion and inde- 
pendence. The proclamtion of Demetrius, when read in the 
market-place, moved the inhabitants of Kalouga; they im- 
mediately hastened to offer him bread and salt, and assigned 
him a suitable retinue. 

Deprived of its nominal chief, the army of Touchino 
attempted at first to maintain itself as a sort of military 
republic, until it should find a prince who would pay a good 
price for its services. Both Poles and Russians swore to 

* That is, the king of Poland —Korol Poganyi. The Russians called 
all who did not belong to their church, pagans. I am not sure, howevei', 
whether poganyi comes from the Latin paganus, or from pogan (impurity) ; 
and whether it should be translated pagan or impure. 

f Baer, p. 159. Most of the Russian houses were then built of wood, 
whence this expression ; " Neither a house nor a plank." 



us 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



remain united, and to recognise the authority neither of 
Schuisky, nor Demetrius.* Rozynski, in the name of his 
soldiers, demanded of Sigismund the payment of the arrears 
due to them from the impostor ; on these terms, they were 
willing to take service under his banners. But discord soon 
broke out among the new confederates. The camp at 
Touchino was broken up in the midst of the greatest con- 
fusion ; most of the Polish and Lithuanian gentlemen of 
mark joined Sigismund beneath the walls of Smolensko. 
A large number of Russians accepted the amnesty which 
Schuisky hastened to offer them. Many of the soldiers 
disbanded and returned to their villages; others formed 
themselves into gangs of marauders, too weak to exercise 
any political influence, but sufficiently numerous to devastate 
the country. Finally the worst part of the Polish army, and 
nearly all the Cossacks, appointed Sapieha their commander, 
and offered their services simultaneously to Sigismund and 
to Demetrius, with the determination to join the highest 
bidder.f 

Such recruits could not restore to the impostor a prestige 
which he had irrecoverably lost. They even exposed him 
to considerable danger, for the Poles, who rallied round him 
at such a moment, were bandits or adventurers, ready to 
commit any kind of treason. J A certain Janikowski wrote 
to the Crown-Hetman to offer, in the name of his comrades, 
to assassinate the pretended Tsar and seize Kalouga for the 
King of Poland, if that would be agreeable to His Majesty. 
The proposition was discussed in the council, but not 
accepted. It was, doubtless, deemed prudent to keep up, 
for some time longer, in the heart of Russia, a civil war 
which was wasting the strength of the country. When 

* Baer, p. 161. 

f Few brave men joined Sapieha ; only the rabble, very few gentlemen, 
but innumerable Cossacks; Maskiewicz, p. 31. 
£ Zolkiewski MSS., p. 62. 



DEVOTEDNESS OF MARINA. 



249 



the false Demetrius was dead, the common people who were 
attached to him would probably return to allegiance to 
Schuisky, instead of submitting to the Poles. These 
considerations prevailed, and the assassination was counter- 
manded. 

As for Marina, left almost alone at Touchino, in the 
midst of these disorganised bands, she took refuge first of 
all at Dmitrof, whither John Sapieha had retreated, after 
having been compelled by Skopin to raise the siege of 
Troitsa. Sapieha, who was at that moment in treaty with 
the King of Poland, offered Marina an escort to take her 
back to her family. " No \ " she replied, '•'the Tsarina of 
all the Russias will not return to her fatherland to display 
her misery. I will share with my husband the fate which 
God has in store for him." She obtained a suit of man's 
clothes ; and in the dress of a hussar, with an escort of about 
fifty Cossacks, she reached Kalouga in the depth of winter, 
after a ride of more than two hundred versts.* Misfortune 
had supplied this young woman, brought up in luxury, with 

* At the end of January or the beginning of February, 1610. Baer, 
p. 159. The narrative of Baer, who was placed in a good position for 
watching the course of events, seems to me preferable to that of the 
Pope's nuncio at Wilna, according to which Marina took in her train a 
large number of Sapieha's troops. At all events, it is probable that she 
had great influence in determining Sapieha, a few months later, to re-enter 
the service of the impostor. The Nuncio's version is as follows : " Mgr. 
Simonetta, Vescovo di Foligno, al Cardinal Borghese, Vilna, 4 Aprile, 1610. 
La principessa figlia del palatino di Sendomiria, essendo stata (dopo presa 
la sua fuga), condotta al Sapieha accampato sotto Demetriow, come con 
le passate significai a V. S. 111. quivi fece istanza di voler parlare ai soldati, 
il che essendole permesse dal detto Sapieha, essa pur travestita del 
medesimo habito militare, che prese per fuggire, oro con tanta efficacia a 
quel campo, e con lamenti e con pianti esagerando il suo stato compassi- 
onevole, commosso tanto gli animi di buona parte di que' soldati, che 
tiratili a sua divotione, fece che andassero colei ad accompagnarla a Kaluga 
al suo Demetrio. Dopo il qual successo, essendosi snervato di forze il 
sudetto Sapieha, fu assalito dallo Scopino, che dicono sia accampato con 
circa 40,000 persone, e fu rotto e disfatto con perdita di molta gente, 

M 3 



250 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



strength to endure the rude fatigues of the adventurous life 
which she was henceforward to lead. 

This devotedness to a man who was unworthy of it may 
surprise us on the part of Marina, and the more so as she 
was far from receiving from her husband that considerate 
attention which she had a right to expect. It was in vain 
that she endeavoured to soften his brutal nature, which was 
incapable of understanding even his own interests. In his 
view, power was nothing but the right of gratifying all his 
ferocious instincts with impunity. Freed from the con- 
straint of the Polish generals, he ordered the persons who 
had served him most faithfully to be hanged or drowned on 
the slightest suspicion. He commanded that Pastor Baer 
and some fifty German Lutherans of his congregation, 
should be arrested and brought to Kalouga, on the charge 
of having entered into correspondence with the emissaries of 
Sigismund. He was going to have them all drowned in the 
Oka, without hearing them. Baer gives a touching account 
of their anguish, and their alternate hopes and consterna- 
tion. Learning that Marina intended to intercede with him 
on their behalf, the impostor exclaimed : i( I am not Deme- 
trius, if they are not all drowned to-day ! If she persists, I 
will have her drowned herself." Like another Esther, 
Marina fronted the rage of this ferocious brute, and by dint 
of tears and entreaties, she succeeded in obtaining the pardon 
of the unhappy victims whom he had condemned.* 

In the spring of the year 1610, Russia presented a most 
deplorable aspect. Three great armies, hostile to each other, 
combined to devastate the country. In the west, Sigismund 

e delle bagaglie, onde appena pote egli con alcuni pochi salvarsi. :i 
Tourghenief, Hist. Euss. Monim, vol. ii. p. 146. It appears evident to me 
that the Nuncio transposes the order of events. It was before and not 
after his retreat to Dmitrof, that Sapieha was defeated by Skopin. 
* Baer, p. 172. 



THE WHITE TSAR. 



251 



was besieging Smolensko; in the south, the false Demetrius 
occupied Kalouga, Toula, and several other towns. Part 
of the Poles who had left the service of the impostor had 
gone to establish themselves on the banks of the Ougra, in a 
fertile district which had hitherto escaped the ravages of 
war. There, under the command of their new leader, John 
Sapieha, they offered their alliance, sometimes to Sigismund, 
and sometimes to the impostor. Nor was this all : another 
adventurer, Prince Procopius Liapounof, took advantage of 
the general confusion to raise a new banner. At the head 
of a numerous band, he proclaimed himself the defender 
of the faith ; and he was called the White Tsar, a title 
which, I think, was borne by the ancient Grand-Princes of 
Muscovy. He waged a deadly warfare against the Poles, 
and the Russians who recognised either Demetrius or Basil. 
" Wherever his horse had passed/' says a chronicler, " the 
grass ceased to grow." * Finally, as if all these armies were 
not sufficient to ruin the country, the Crim Tartars passed 
the Oka, under the pretext of bringing aid to Basil their 
ally ; but, in reality, their roving bands sacked the villages 
through which they passed, and carried into captivity a 
multitude of men and women. f 

Such was the state of Russia at the time of Skopin's death. 
Basil, deriving some hope from the division of his enemies, 
turned his whole attention to the danger which seemed to 
him most pressing. After having vainly attempted to dis- 
arm Sigismund by humiliations and promises, he determined 
to give him battle ; and, announcing his intention to deliver 
Smolensko, he despatched from Moscow an army of sixty 
thousand men, including a considerable body of German, 
English, and French mercenaries,]: commanded by Jacques 



* Baer, p. 150. White Tsar seems to me to be synonymous with a 
national, truly Russian, prince. + Baer, p. 150. 

+ The Letopis o MiatejaJch calls these foreigners Germans i Zolkiewski 



252 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



de la Gardie. The experience and ability of this general, 
who had shared in the glory of Skopin, seemed to him 
to presage fresh successes : but as it was necessary to 
have a Russian commander-in-chief, Basil committed the 
fault of placing his brother Demetrius Schuisky at the head 
of the whole army, although the soldiers neither loved nor 
esteemed him. To the friendly harmony which had pre- 
vailed between the Muscovites and their foreign auxiliaries, 
so long as they had had Skopin to lead them, jealousy and 
distrust had now succeeded. The Russians feared defection 
on the part of the Germans and other mercenaries, whom 
they regarded as the compatriots of the Poles. The 
foreigners, in their turn, complained of being ill-paid and ill- 
supported by their allies. They said that they alone sus- 
tained the whole burden of the war, and that the Tsar, who 
was indebted to them for his crown, had manifested neither 
gratitude nor generosity towards them. With such feelings 
this vast army left Moscow on its march towards Smolensko, 
accompanied by an immense train of baggage, and preceded 
by a body of ten thousand men, to clear the ground and cut 
to pieces any detachments which the King of Poland might 
send to meet them. 

Sigismund received this news at a time when his affairs 
were far from turning as he had anticipated. In vain had 
he tried against Smolensko, corruption, escalade, under- 
mining and cannonading ; the besieged defended themselves 
with the utmost vigour, and haughtily rejected his summonses 
to yield. The King had succeeded in engaging in his 
services only a small number of Rozynski's and Sapieha's 
Poles, as most of them found that the guerilla warfare which 
they were waging was far more profitable to them than 

says they were French. They were a body composed of emigrants from 
all countries, but mostly from Germany. Their generals, La Gardie and 
Horn, were Swedes. 



POSITION OF SIGISMUND. 



253 



regular service. He was in want of money, and the mem- 
bers of the Diet, who had at first most ardently supported 
the plan of an expedition into Russia, alarmed at the 
obstacles which it now met with, were disposed to refuse 
subsidies for its continuance. Under these circumstances, 
the King, humbling his pride, seemed ready to accept any 
accommodation which would allow him to retreat with 
honour. He authorised some of the Palatines to write 
to the boyards of the council at Moscow, to suggest 
propositions of peace. He even directed one of his cham- 
berlains to convey the message. At that time, probably 
some slight cession of territory, or perhaps even a promise 
of subsidies in indemnification of his armaments, would have 
sufficed him. But, on this change of tone, Basil, judging 
the position of the enemy to be more disastrous than it really 
was, became arrogant in his turn, and refused to receive the 
King^s chamberlain. - * A battle then became inevitable. 
Should it be fousfht under the walls of Smolensko ? or should 
he anticipate the attack of the Muscovites by marching to 
meet them ? The royal camp was divided between these 
two opinions, when the Potockis suggested a third course 
which was finally adopted. They persuaded Sigismund 
that the breach would soon be practicable, and that the 
capture of Smolensko was certain, if only a body of men 
were detached to meet the Russians, and delay their march 
for a few days by skirmishing with their vanguard.-j- Re- 
serving to themselves the honour of entering the town, they 
induced the King to entrust to Zolkiewski the ungrateful 
and perilous mission of arresting the progress of Schuisky's 
immense army. As soon as he found there was any danger 
to be incurred, the old Hetman accepted all the posts 
that were offered him without a murmur. He accordingly 
left the camp before Smolensko with a handful of men, 

* Zolkiewski MSS., p. 65. f Zolkiewski MSS., p. 71. 



254 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



convinced that he was being sacrificed, but resolved to do his 
duty, and certain not to fall without honour. 

First of all, by the rapidity of his march, he surprised 
the Muscovite vanguard, under the command of Valouief, 
at Tsarevo-Zaimistche, threw it into confusion, and drove 
it back into the woods, compelling it to leave the road to 
Moscow open to his own troops; he then immediately cut 
it off from all chance of retreat, by blockading it within 
entrenchments of palisades, which were constructed with 
inconceivable celerity. But it was nothing for Zolkiewski to 
beat ten thousand men, and shut them up within a barricade, 
so that, from want of provisions, they would soon be com- 
pelled to capitulate. Learning that Demetrius Schuisky, 
with the main body of his army, was encamped at a short 
distance, he left a few Cossacks and nearly all his infantry to 
guard Valouief ; and, under cover of the night, he moved off 
with the rest of his troops, in the most profound silence, and 
marched upon the principal camp of the Muscovites, near the 
village of Klouchino. Most of the Poles believed that their 
old general, tired of life, was seeking an occasion to die glo- 
riously; and Zolkiewski himself, in the narrative which he 
has left of his expedition, gives us to understand that he had 
no other hope."* Nevertheless, he was too skilful a man of 
war to neglect any of the chances of success which he had 
at his disposal. Two days before, he had liberated some 
Frenchmen whom he had taken in a skirmish, and sent them 
back to their camp, with orders to convey to the foreigners 
in the pay of Basil a proclamation, which he had written in 
very elegant Latin, with which language he was perfectly 
familiar. He exhorted them to leave the service of a bar- 
barian, and to enrol themselves under the standard of a 
prince who was a friend and brother of their sovereigns. 
These emissaries were arrested and hanged by La Gardie ; 



Zolkiewski MSS., p. 86. 



EXPLOITS OF ZOLKIEWSKI. 



255 



but Zolkiewski's manifesto nevertheless produced its effect. 
The Russians believed they were betrayed : and the foreign 
soldiers began to discuss among themselves whether more 
or less was to be gained in the service of Sigismund than 
in that of Schuisky.* 

Meanwhile, Basil's generals were full of confidence ; and, 
far from believing that Zolkiewski would venture to attack 
them, they thought they would be able to enclose him 
between Valouief 's troops and their own army. La Gardie, 
remembering that he had once been the Hetman's prisoner, 
and that he had been most courteously treated by him, pro- 
mised himself that he would fully return the obligation. 
" He then made me a present of a wolfskin pelisse,"" he 
said ; " I have got one of ermine, which I will give him 
with my own hand.^t Demetrius Schuisky and his officers 
passed part of the night in festivity, celebrating their future 
exploits, and rousing each other's courage by boasts of all 
kinds. Great was the surprise, and no less great the con- 
sternation, of the Russian army, when, on the morning of 
the 4th of July, at daybreak, awakened suddenly by the 
Polish trumpets, they perceived the enemy ranged in order 
of battle, and halting in sight of their camp. Such was the 
opinion entertained of Zolkiewskr's chivalrous character, 
that the foreign officers exclaimed, when they saw that he 
made no movement, that he was too brave-hearted a man 
to fall upon sleeping enemies, and that he intended to fight 
them in a loyal encounter. J Such, however, was not the 
chief motive of the Polish general's manoeuvre. The difficul- 
ties of a night march, along heavy roads, had compelled hini 
to leave behind his infantry, composed of 200 men, and the 
two falconets, which formed the whole of his artillery. At 
the head of less than three thousand cavalry, he stood 
calmly watching the Russians and foreign troops, who in 



* Zolkiewski MSS., p. 88. 



t Ibid, p. 93. 



J Ibid, p. 95. 



256 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



the greatest confusion, were rushing to arms, and preparing 
to receive his onslaught.* 

The army of Demetrius Schuisky was divided into two 
bodies: one composed of Russian troops to the number of 
nearly 40,000 men ; the other consisting of 8000 foreign 
soldiers, under the command of La Gardie and Horn. 
Woods and marshes bounded the field of battle. In front 
of the two camps, cultivated fields, enclosed by hedges, 
ditches, and palisades, left a number of open spaces between 
the two armies, in which the cavalry could manoeuvre. 
Within these limited enclosures, the hussars, notwithstand- 
ing their small number, opposed an equal front to the 
enemy's cavalry. Well mounted and barded with iron, 
they had no difficulty in driving before them the German 
reiters and the Muscovite light-horsemen. But the arque- 
busiers, who lined the hedges and other available positions, 
stopped the impetuous charges of the Poles, killed their 
horses, and, without danger to themselves, kept up an 
incessant fire, which diminished their numbers at every en- 
gagement. This unequal conflict lasted for nearly five hours, 
during which every Polish squadron charged at least eight 
or ten times, f At length, the Hetman's infantry arrived. 
Notwithstanding their small number, they resolutely attacked 
the enclosures, and carried them. At the same time, the 
hussars, deriving fresh courage from their despair, threw 
the reiters into confusion with a furious charge, and broke 
the enemy's centre. The rout immediately became general. 
Part of the foreign troops dispersed, carrying with them 
La Gardie and Horn, who made futile efforts to rally them. 
Demetrius Schuisky fell into a marsh, lost his horse and his 

* Maskiewicz, p. 40. "We surprised the Russians," he says, "at a 
moment when the soldier, in his confusion, says to his comrade : 'Saddle 
my shabrack, pass me my horse (Sedla'i portky, davai Jconia).'" 

+ Maskiewicz, pp. 41, 42. 



BATTLE OF KLOUCHINO. 



257 



boots, and had great difficulty in escaping with naked feet 
from the field of battle.* A large number of Muscovites 
plunged into the woods, caring only to escape the lances of 
the Poles, who hotly pursued the fugitives. The main body 
of the Russians, however, though terror-stricken, remained 
faithful to their standard, and formed themselves into a 
confused mass, which it would have been difficult to pene- 
trate, and which was still numerous enough to exterminate 
the victors, if it had ventured to resume the offensive. The 
foreign troops, on their side, hastily fell into rank, with a 
little more order than the Russians, but with even less 
inclination to renew the fight. Placed between these two 
armies, the Poles, harassed with fatigue, but masters of the 
field of battle, and exulting in their victory, cut off all com- 
munication between the two camps. f A few began to pil- 
lage the baggage- wagons of the Muscovites ; J but the 
greater number, dismounting from their horses, sought a 
little rest after the toils of the day. Zolkiewski alone 
deemed that he had done nothing so long as a hostile troop 
still remained under arms. He went to the foreign mercena- 
ries, and offered them honourable conditions. A parley was 
begun. The affairs of Schuisky seemed desperate, and all 
that the adventurers cared to know was whether the King of 
Poland would accept and pay for their services. Ere long, 
the foreigners began, in twos and threes, to issue from the 
enclosure of baggage-wagons, behind which they had en- 
trenched themselves, to come forward, and mingle with the 
Poles. Entire companies deserted with their banners. In 
vain La Gardie and Horn used every endeavour to prevent 

* Zolkiewski MSS., p. 103. ' f Maskiewicz, p. 43. 

X Zolkiewski says that Demetrius Schuisky ordered the most valuable 
part of his baggage to be placed in his camp, in the hope that, in order to 
seize this rich booty, the Poles would cease their pursuit of the fugitives. 
Zolkiewski MSS., p. 102. 



258 



LEMETRITJS THE IMPOSTOR. 



their soldiers from engaging in this disgraceful negotiation. * 
They were abandoned by nearly all their captains in suc- 
cession, and finally compelled to accept the terms offered by 
the conqueror. The defection of their foreign auxiliaries 
completed the discouragement of the Muscovites; and they 
demanded, in their turn, to capitulate. Zolkiewski returned 
to his camp that same evening ; and Valouief was informed 
simultaneously of the temporary absence, the victory, and 
the return of his enemy. He had no more provisions, no 
hope of being succoured, so he too laid down his arms.-f* 

Such was the battle of Klouchino, — an achievement which 
reflects the greatest glory on the Polish arms, and most of 
all, on the general who, in less than twenty-four hours, 
vanquished two armies far superior to his own. In this 
short space of time, Zolkiewski manifested by turns the 
stoicism of an old soldier devoting himself to certain death, 
the ability of a tactician in taking advantage of his enemy's 
blunders, and discovering unexpected resources on the field 
of battle itself, and finally, the prudence of a profound 
political genius, ever wise, ever master of himself, even after 
the most unexpected success. The battle of Klouchino 
seemed decisive, and destined to ensure for ever the pre- 
ponderance of Poland in the North ; but, in consequence of 
the inconceivable mistakes of Sigismund, it produced no 
other result than the addition of a glorious page to the 
military history of the country. J 

* Zolkiewski MSS., p. 102. f Zolkiewski MSS., p. 106. 

J Regarding the battle of Klouchino, compare the narratives of Zol- 
kiewski, pp. 94 — 104 • of Maskiewicz, pp. 39 — 45 ; and of Baer, p. 169. 
The first two were witnesses and actors on this memorable day. Several 
Russian authors attribute their defeat to the defection of the foreign 
troops in Schuisky's pay. This is a consolation to their national self-love, 
which, even after their final victory, cannot endure to think of past 
defeats. Undoubtedly, Basil's mercenaries did not do what they might 
have done ; nevertheless, they sustained alone all the brunt of the battle, 
and left a sixth of their number (1200 men) dead on the field. The loss 



DEPOSITION OF BASIL. 



£59 



CHAPTER XIII. 

DEPOSITION OP BASIL. — THE BOTARDS DETERMINE TO CHOOSE PRINCE LADIS- 
LAUS OF POLAND FOR THEIR TSAR. — DEMETRIUS RESOLVES TO ATTACK 
MOSCOW. — DESERTION OF SAPIEHA. — FLIGHT OF DEMETRIUS. — HIS PLANS. 
— HIS ASSASSINATION BY THE TARTARS. — FATE OF MARINA. 

No Russian army now existed. The news of the defeat 
of Klouchino excited an insurrection at Moscow. Basil 
was made responsible for the misfortunes of the country. 
The boyards overwhelmed him with reproaches, and forced 
him to abdicate. He was dragged from his palace, and 
conducted under a strong guard to the house which he had 
inhabited previously to his election, A few days afterwards, 
his former courtiers, now his judges, determined that he 
should be made a monk. It is said that he attempted to 
resist, and that Prince Zachary Liapounof held his hands 
whilst his hair was being cut off.* 

There are moments in the history of a nation when the 
evils of anarchy have become so intolerable that it is ready 

of the Russians was about the same, and they were 40,000 men ; besides 
which, Zolkiewski and Maskiewicz both declare that they lost more 
during the pursuit than during the combat. Both the Poles are also 
agreed on this point that the victory was decided as soon as the foreign 
cavalry were thrown into confusion. Maskiewicz says that it consisted 
of German Reiters : Zolkiewski, of English and French horse. See 
Appendix D. 

* Zolkiewski MSS., p. 119. 



260 DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 

to purchase order and peace at any price, even at the sacri- 
fice of its national pride. Prince Feodor Mstislavski, the 
first boyard of the council, and perhaps the most respected, 
because he was known to be exempt from all personal 
ambition, declared that he believed further resistance im- 
possible, and that they must submit with resignation to the 
decree of Providence. 64 Russia," he said, " has been for 
three years like a sheep torn in pieces by devouring wolves. 
Basil has proved impotent to defend it. Among the princes 
of the blood of Rurik, there is not one superior to the 
others either in birth or in rank ; not one who has the right 
to command the obedience of the others. Let us take for 
our Tsar a foreigner who can have no equal among us."* 
Every one understood the tendency of this speech. It was 
known already that Zolkiewski, believing that he acted for 
the interests, as well as in conformity to the instructions of 
his master, had proposed to his prisoners to recognise Ladis- 
laus, the son of Sigismund, as their Tsar, and had even 
received their oaths of allegiance to him.f Several boyards, 
better aware of the secret desires of the king, immediately 
represented that, among foreign princes, there was not one 
more illustrious than the King of Poland. Himself a Slavo- 
nian, he was more worthy than a German to rule Slavonians. 

* Zolkiewski MSS., p. 118 ; Baer, p. 183. 
+ It appears probable to me that Zolkiewski had never received precise 
instructions on this point, although he asserts that, on his departure from 
the camp before Smolensko, the candidature of Ladislaus was in some 
sort recognised and authorised by the council. I believe that Sigismund 
had never come to a frank explanation with the Hetman. It seems that 
he had been more confidential with the envoys of the Holy See; at least 
we may suppose so from the following passage from a letter from Nuncio 
Simonetta to Cardinal Borghese, dated from "Wilna, April 23, 1610, that is, 
more than two months before the battle of Klouchino : " Mi ha poi 
conferito, come da se, il sudetto Mgr. Firlei che sua Maesta risoluta 
(impadronita che si sera di Smolensco) di proseguir il reslante deW impresa 
di tutta la Moscovia, e di trasferirsi percid in persona col suo campo alia 
volta della Metropoli di Mosca." Tourghenief, Hist. Buss. Monim, vol. ii. 



LADISLAUS NOMINATED TSAR. 



261 



By calling him to the throne, they would obtain peace, and a 
powerful protector, who would speedily deliver Russia from 
the bandit of Touchino. 

This proposition wounded the national pride, but in the 
actual condition of affairs it seemed impossible to reject it, 
when, as a sort of compromise, it was proposed to confer the 
crown upon Prince Ladislaus. The Hetman Zolkiewski 
had already suggested him on the battle-field of Klouchino. 
By this means, Russia would avoid becoming the vassal of 
Poland. The prince was only sixteen years of age ; he was 
young enough to adopt the manners, and perhaps, the 
religion of the people who gave him a throne ; and finally, 
as all the boyards felt, but none of them expressed, with an 
inexperienced young man, a career remained open to all 
ambitions. The council of the empire assembled in the 
Kremlin, and unanimously decided that Ladislaus should 
be acknowledged as Tsar of all the Russias, provided he 
would promise to respect the national religion and customs. 
It was not usual for the boyards to come so rapidly to a 
resolution of such importance ; but their deliberation was 
quickened, it is said, by the announcement of a danger 
more formidable even than the approach of Zolkiewski's 
little troop. * News had reached the false Demetrius at 
Kalouga of the deposition of Basil and the victory of the 
Poles. He had immediately hastened to write to Zolkiewski, 
offering to submit as a vassal to Sigismund, and to cede to 
him the province of Smolensko. His envoys were instructed 
to bribe the Hetman with promises or presents ; but the old 
warrior was incorruptible. He received these overtures 
with contempt, and merely permitted the agents of the 
impostor to proceed with them to the king in his camp 
before Smolensko. There was no likelihood that Sigismund, 
flushed with victory, would prove more tractable ; so, with- 



* Zolkiewski MSS., p. 128. 



262 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR, 



out awaiting his answer, the impostor determined to take a 
desperate course. In the general disorder, he thought a 
favourable moment had come for making a descent upon 
Moscow ; in fact, the town contained no troops ; the Poles 
had not yet passed Mojaisk ; and he knew that the 
populace of the capital would be disposed to second him.* 
Collecting all his forces, he left Kalouga, proclaiming that 
he was about to avenge the misfortunes of the country, and to 
defend the national independence. His army had just been 
reinforced by the Polish troops of Sapieha, who, not having 
been able to come to an agreement with Sigismund, had 
quickly perceived, that in order to subsist in Russia, his 
band had need of a standard. He had, therefore, joined the 
pretender of Kalouga, who, delighted to have such an ally, 
had wisely forgotten to reproach him with his desertion a few 
months before. With these forces, and relying upon the 
co-operation of his partisans in the capital, the impostor 
advanced with forced marches, breathing only threats and 
vengeance. 

The boyards, in alarm, immediately summoned Zol- 
kiewski to their aid. The treaty was signed without 
debate. The boyards only demanded that the integrity of 
the empire should be maintained, and the national religion 
protected ; and they offered, moreover, to pay all the 
expenses of the war. Zolkiewski thought himself au- 
thorised to consent to these conditions, and he had served 
his master well enough to hope that he would allow him 
the glory of settling the articles of peace. Immediately 
hastening his march, he outstripped the impostor, and took 
command of the Muscovite troops which the council of 
boyards placed at his disposal. Thus, a few days after the 
battle of Klouchino, Zolkiewski found himself at the head 
of a Russian army, which, combined with his own, believed 
itself invincible. 

* Zolkiewski MSS., pp. 126, 137. 



DESERTION OF SAPIEHA. 



263 



On perceiving the banners of the Hetman, Sapieha' s 
Poles, who were inferior in numbers and very badly 
organised, halted, and declared that they would not fight 
against their fellow-countrymen. The Russians, on the 
other side, besought Zolkiewski to give the signal of 
attack, in order to cut this horde of pillagers to pieces ;* 
but Zolkiewski would not consent to this. Instead of 
charging each other, the two generals saluted, shook 
hands, and conversed together with much friendliness. 
Sapieha protested his entire devotedness to the King of 
Poland ; but as the leader of an army of volunteers, it 
had been his chief duty to watch over their interests ; he 
considered himself as a merchant (and to such men war 
was a trade), who, having engaged in an enterprise with 
a number of copartners, could not neglect to stipulate for 
some compensation in their behalf. As for the Tsarik,-\ 
as the Poles contemptuously termed the second Demetrius, 
Sapieha, who had never been his dupe, was by no means 
willing to sacrifice himself in his cause; only, he thought 
himself bound in honour to demand an indemnity for a man 
whose banner he had borne, and who, after all, had deserved 
well of his companions. To this request the Hetman readily 
consented, and promised, in the King's name, that if Deme- 
trius would renounce his pretensions, he should receive a 
pension befitting his rank, or even the sovereignty of Grodno 
or Sambor, whichever he might prefer. With this promise, 
Sapieha held himself satisfied, and declared that, if the pre- 
tender did not accept these conditions, he was ready to give 
him up to the king. J 

During this conference, the impostor was awaiting the 
event at a few miles from Moscow; for, very unlike the first 

* Zolkiewski MSS., p. 138. 

f A contemptuous diminutive of the word Tsar — Tsarling. 
t Zolkiewski MSS , p. 135 ; Maskiewicz, p. 50. 



264 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



Demetrius, he took care not to appear at the head of his 
troops when they were marching to battle. He had 
established himself with Marina in the convent of Oukre- 
schenski, about two leagues from his camp, and felt persuaded 
that, in the meanwhile, his troops had come to blows with 
the Strelitz of Moscow. On learning the agreement between 
the Polish generals, he fell into a state of apathetic dis- 
couragement ; but Marina, transported with indignation 
and fury, haughtily rejected the insulting propositions which 
were made to her. " Tell your master," she said to 
Zolkiewskr's envoys, (i that his Majesty the Tsar requires 
that Sigismund shall yield Cracow to him, and that he is 
willing to give him Warsaw in compensation/** 

It was not easy to sustain this haughty language by 
actions of equal boldness. It is true that the Polish 
soldiers, faithful to the bandit who had enriched them, 
declared that they would not desert their lord, and swore to 
protect him against their officers ;f but Moscow had already 
acknowledged the rule of Ladislaus, and Zolkiewski guarded 
it with his invincible army. Whilst the impostor, cursing 
the treason of his general, was losing precious time without 
leaving the monastery in which he had taken up his 
quarters, Zolkiewski, in concert with the boyards of the 
council, had caused the gates of Moscow to be opened, 
passed through the town in the profoundest silence, and 
marched upon the convent with all his troops. He would 
infallibly have captured the impostor, if a Muscovite, riding 
up at full gallop, had not revealed to him the danger which 
threatened him. Accompanied by a few Don Cossacks, 
Demetrius, Marina, and the ataman Zarucki fled in 
breathless haste, and did not draw bridle until they had 
reached the sheltering walls of Kalouga.J 



• Zolkiewski MSS., p. 140. f Zolkiewski MSS., p. 136. 

X Zolkiewski MSS., pp. 140—142. 



DEMETRIUS AT KAL0UGA. 



265 



Once more within his stronghold, the impostor was able 
again to taste the pleasures of vengeance. Ci If I regain my 
crown," he said, " I will not leave a single foreigner alive 
within my dominions, not even a child in his mother's 
womb." * His actions corresponded with these ferocious 
words. His troops issued at night from Kalouga to devastate 
the country, and bring in prisoners. Serfs or traders were 
lashed to death with whips : Polish or Russian gentlemen 
were drowned beneath the ice of the Oka.f Thus he waged 
war, and this war, as he himself felt, could not last long. He 
had lost the hope of reigning in Moscow, but he flattered 
himself that he would still obtain a share, and a considerable 
share, in the dismemberment of the Empire which seemed to 
be in preparation. It is stated that he had resolved to 
establish himself in Astracan, and to found, for himself, an 
independent principality. As he had so often been betrayed 
by the Poles and Russians, he used incessantly to say : " I 
will take the Turks and Tartars for my allies, provided they 
will help me to reconquer the throne of my ancestors. If 
I cannot reign over Russia, at all events, while I am alive, 
Russia shall have no rest/'J He no longer trusted him- 
himself, as in former times, to a guard of Don Cossacks, or 
even of fierce Zaporogues. He never went forth unless 
surrounded by a band of Tartars or Circassians ; and whilst, 
following the example of the Tsars of Muscovy, he 
audaciously assumed the title of The only Christian Prince 
in the Universe, he bestowed no favours upon any but his 
Mussulman mercenaries. They were the usual companions 
of his amusements and of his barbarous orgies. § 

His violent temper could not even allow him to treat such 
useful allies with consideration for any length of time. A 
Tartar prince named Kassimofski, one of those on whom 



* Baer, p. 163. 
% Ibid., p. 187. 



f Ibid., p. 188. 

§ Ibid., pp. 153, 187. 

N 



266 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



the title of Tsar was conferred, had a son in the impostor's 
service. He had, at one time, followed his banners 
himself, but, after Rozynski's defection, he had presented 
himself to Sigismund before Smolensko, and sworn to do 
him homage. Alarmed on account of his son, who had 
remained at Kalouga, he proceeded secretly to that town, 
and besought him to abandon a cause which was now utterly 
hopeless. Denounced as a traitor by his unnatural son, he 
was immediately thrown into a hole in the ice of the Oka 
by order of the Tsar.* Such was the ordinary method of 
despatching traitors, or rather, those suspected of treason. 
The punishment was too common to astonish any one, but 
the crime of the son who had denounced his own father 
struck all his fellow-countrymen, the Tartars, with horror. 
Peter Erouslanof, another converted Tartar prince, who 
had married the widow of one of the brothers of Tsar Basil 
Schuisky,t and who had, until then, been considered one of 
the favourites of the false Demetrius, resolved to be the 
avenger of his whole nation, which had been humiliated and 
dishonoured by a parricide. One night, he lay in wait near 
the palace, in the hope of meeting young Kassimofski and 
killing him, but, deceived by the similarity of costume, he 
stabbed another Tartar prince. This murder created a great 
sensation. The Tsar, in a rage, ordered Erouslanof to be 
arrested, with about fifty of his adherents, and had them 
cast into prison. In the ideas of these men, imprisonment 
was a worse outrage than death. The wrath of Demetrius 
soon cooled down ; Erouslanof was necessary to him, 
because he knew the road to Astracan, and had a numerous 

* He assumed the title of Tsar of the CossacJc Horde. He had been 
made prisoner by the Russians whilst very young, and Tsar Ivan took the 
pains to convert him to Christianity, and gave him the principality of 
Kassimof, whence he derived his name. Zolkiewski MSS., p. 188. 

t Tsar Basil Schuisky had given him the widow of his younger brother, 
Alexander Schuisky, in marriage. Maskiewicz, p. 59. 



MURDER OF DEMETRIUS. 



267 



horde at his command. He ordered his liberation, and 
with the same levity with which he had punished him, he 
restored him to his favour. But the Tartar prince left his 
dungeon, persuaded that his honour required that he 
should take terrible vengeance for this insult. However, 
with the characteristic patience of his race, he dissembled 
his resentment, and apparently redoubled his zeal and 
affection for the Tsar. Every night he made expeditions 
into the neighbourhood of Kalouga, and brought back 
abundance of booty and prisoners. During these excursions, 
Erouslanof sounded his countrymen, assured himself of 
their fidelity, and arranged everything to entice his devoted 
victim into an ambuscade. 

On the 11th of December, 1610, the Tsar left Kalouga 
to go hunting according to his custom, escorted by 
Erouslanof with a score of his Tartars, and several officers 
of his court, among whom was the buffoon Kochelef, his 
inseparable companion. This was the opportunity for 
which P]rouslanof had waited. As soon as the huntsmen 
were out of sight, the Tartars who had remained at Kalouga, 
obeying an order given them by their chief, mounted 
their horses, and, leaving the town by different gates in 
order not to arouse suspicion, gathered to the number of a 
thousand horsemen at the appointed place of rendezvous. 
Meanwhile, the Tsar rode gaily along in the midst of his 
escort; they arrived at a place where refreshments had 
been prepared. While the Tsar was drinking, Erouslanof 
fired his pistol at him, and hit him in the breast, 
shouting : " Take that ! accursed dog : that will teach you 
to drown Khans, and put princes into prison ! " The Tsar 
was only wounded by the shot; but the Tartar despatched 
him with his sabre, and cut off his head and hand. Then, 
satiated with revenge, he hastened to rejoin his troop, and 
returned to the steppes, burning and devastating everything 

N 2 



268 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



on his way.* The buffoon and officers of the Tsar, who 
had taken to flight at full speed, conveyed to Kalouga the 
news of the catastrophe. The common people, still strongly 
attached to the name of Demetrius, fell upon a few Tartars, 
who, probably from ignorance of the plot, had remained in 
the town ; they were immolated to the manes of the Tsar. 
As for the majority of the horde, they were out of reach. 
When the Kalougans arrived at the scene of the murder, 
the body of the impostor was lying on the ground, and his 
head had rolled to several paces from his trunk. These 
mournful remains were gathered up, and interred in the 
church of Kalouga with the ceremonies usual at the funerals 
of the Grand Dukes of Muscovy.f 

Marina was far advanced in pregnancy when she lost her 
second husband. A few days after his death, she gave 
birth to a son, who received the name of Ivan, and to whom 
the little court of Kalouga swore fidelity and allegiance. 
Among the partisans of the false Demetrius, the man who 
now possessed the greatest authority, from his adherents 
among the Cossacks, was the ataman Zarucki. He 
declared himself the protector of the mother and child, and 
placed himself at the head of the still numerous remnant 
of the faction which remained ever obstinately attached to 
the name of Demetrius. It is said that he was in love with 
Marina ; but ambition alone can explain his conduct. 
Though a skilful leader of a Cossack incursion, he had 
neither the talents nor the political views indispensable to 
the chief of a party. As the head of a band, which deser- 
tion daily diminished in number, he wandered for some time 
in the neighbourhood of Moscow, and in the steppes of 
Southern Russia, with the unfortunate Marina in his train. 
She had left the Kremlin for the tent of the Impostor of 



* Baer, p. 188 ; Letopis o Miatejakh, p. 200 ; Zolkiewski MSS., 
pp. 187-191. f Baer, p. 190. 



FATE OF MARINA. 



269 



Touchino ; the bivouac of a Cossack chief was now the only 
asylum that remained to her. Her life occupies no further 
place in the history of Russia ; and information has in vain 
been sought regarding her movements, and the part which 
she played during the three years which she continued at 
large. 



270 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



CHAPTEK XIY. 



WISE PROCEEDINGS OF ZOLKIEWSKI. — VANITY AND AMBITION OF SIGISMUND. — 
RENEWAL OF THE WAR. — CAPTURE OF SMOLENSKO. — SIEGE OF THE KREM- 
LIN. — VICTORIES OF GONCIEWSKI. — GENERAL DISORDER AND DESPAIR. — 
PATRIOTISM OF KOZMA MININ. — CONCLUSION. 

If the false Demetrius had not been assassinated at an 
earlier period, it was because he had already long ceased to 
be formidable. Moscow and most of the northern provinces 
had sworn fidelity toLadislaus. The nobles were convinced 
that a foreign prince alone could sway and restrain the 
ambition of the numerous descendants of Rurik. The 
people, though still retaining an old leaven of hatred to the 
Poles, were thoroughly discouraged, and resigned themselves 
to receive a master from the hostile nation, provided that 
master would give them tranquillity, and respect the national 
religion. Zolkiewski, indeed, as able as politician as he was 
a great general, had succeeded in reconciling the Muscovites 
to a foreign rule. All were loud in their praises of his 
loyalty, his justice, his military frankness, and the care 
with which he maintained discipline in a victorious army, 
which was discontented at not being better rewarded for 
its services. * By his skill in humouring the susceptibilities 

* The Polish soldiers demanded their pay after the battle of Klouchino, 
and threatened their general with a confederation. The boyards offered 
money to the Hetman to satisfy the demands of his army. Zolkiewski 
MSS., pp. 132-152. 



EGOTISM OF SIGISMUND. 



271 



of the boyards, the people and the clergy, the old Hetman 
had obtained full pardon for his victory at Klouchino. 
The Patriarch himself, notwithstanding his prejudices, had 
allowed himself at last to yield to the ascendancy of this truly 
great man. * The Polish army occupied the Kremlin and 
a few towns in the neighbourhood of Moscow. It now 
protected the Russians against the incorrigible marauders 
who still protested, with arms in their hands, against the 
decision of the Council of the Empire. Basil Schuisky and 
his brothers had been delivered up to the Hetman, who 
had sent them to his master, f Finally, Michael Schei'n, 
the governor of Smolensko, declared that he accepted the 
convention agreed upon at Moscow, and that he recognised 
the authority of Ladislaus ; he added, it is true, that, so 
long as he lived, the Polish eagle should never wave over 
his ramparts. As the governor of a Russian town, he said, 
he was ready to yield to the sovereign appointed by the 
nation, but he would never give it up to a foreign army. J 

Sigismund, whom the victory of his general had rendered 
the arbiter of the destinies of Russia, might with a word 
have ensured the lasting preponderance of his country in 
the North, and acquired for himself immortal glory. He was 
however, ambitious, egotistical and vain, and he preferred 
the appearance of power to its reality. He was jealous of 
that son whom the Muscovites besought him to give them 
for their sovereign ; and perhaps, more jealous still of the 
glory of Zolkiewski. He was indignant that that great 
captain had acted so considerately towards the vanquished, 
and accepted a submission which was not unconditional. 
Above all things, he was enraged at the heroic resistance of 
Smolensko, which had now lasted for a year, and which he 
regarded as a personal affront. At any risk, he determined 
to have his revenge upon its defenders. The Jesuits, 



* Zolkiewski MSS., p. 159. 



f Ibid., p. 135. $ Ibid., pp. 170-176. 



272 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



too, who possessed his confidence, awakened his religious 
scruples. " It was a small thing," they told him, « e to 
humble Russia, and make her a vassal of Poland, so long as 
the schism of the East was not extirpated. Not only had 
the Hetman made no stipulations in favour of the Catholic 
religion, but he even seemed rather to have given guarantees 
to the Greek Church, and taken measures to arrest the 
propagation of the faith in Russia. What could be done 
by Ladislaus, a youth of sixteen, when surrounded by schis- 
matic advisers ? Was it not to be feared that, instead of con- 
verting his new subjects, he would himself be placed under 
influences likely to prove perilous to his own salvation, as 
well as to the Catholic Church." In his conscience as well 
as in the speeches of his flatterers, Sigismund found 
arguments for yielding to his ambition and vanity. He 
wrote to the Hetman that he wanted the crown of the Tsars, 
not for his son, but for himself ; and, in utter disregard of the 
convention made with the Council of Boyards, he assumed 
the title of Autocrat of all the Russias, and ordered that all 
ukases should be issued in his name. Zolkiewski had had 
time to study the disposition of the Muscovites; he knew 
how much they were able to endure, and he had many 
times represented to his master the difficulties and dangers 
of his position. Finding his remonstrances useless, he 
resolved no longer to retain the kind of Regency, with which 
his victory had invested him. After having taken all the 
measures which experience suggested to him to guard the 
little Polish garrison of Moscow against attack, he resigned 
the command to Gonciewski, and went to rejoin the King in 
his camp before Smolensko. His departure revealed to the 
Russians the fate which was in store for them. The Polish 
troops took possession of the principal towns, proclaimed 
Sigismund, and observed none of those courtesies by which 
the Hetman had won the confidence and esteem of the 



SIEGE OF THE KREMLIN. 



273 



vanquished. Though stifled momentarily after its numerous 
reverses, the national feeling awoke with renewed energy. 
The Patriarch Hermogenes, an old man of eighty, respected 
by all the people as a model of virtue and sincere piety, 
was the first to give utterance to a war-cry which resounded 
through the whole Empire. * On every side, the people 
rushed to arms, and the war began again with greater fury 
than ever. 

Smolensko, reduced by fire, famine, and pestilence, yielded 
at last, when its defenders were too few in number to man 
the breaches. When the last assault took place, the explosion 
of a powder-magazine set fire to the town, and the in- 
habitants, resolved not to survive the conquest of their 
fatherland, were seen rushing into the flames to perish, 
rather than witness the triumph of the enemies of the faith. f 
Sigismund made the conquest of a mere heap of ruins. Mos- 
cow had not the same glorious fate, although its disaster 
was terrible also. The troops of the provinces, roused by 
the voice of Hermogenes, marched from every direction on 
the capital. The Poles, attacked in the streets and driven 
from several suburbs, succeeded in maintaining themselves 
in the Kremlin only by surrounding themselves with a wall 
of flames. The town was almost entirely destroyed, but the 
Kremlin remained in the hands of the enemy, impregnable 
by the undisciplined levies which gathered in hordes around 
it. The army of the confederated provinces was immense, 
but disorder paralysed all its operations. Every leader, 
having his own particular interests and plans, sought less to 
injure the enemy than his fellow-countrymen. The igno- 
rance or bad- will of the generals equalled the want of disci- 
pline of the soldiers. The Kremlin was surrounded 
simultaneously by three Russian armies, more disposed to 
fight each other than to drive the Poles from their entrench- 



* Maskiewicz, p. 56. 



f Zolkiewski fflSS., p. 217. 

n 3 



274 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



merits. One of these armies was composed, for the greater 
part, of vagabonds who had escaped from the camp at 
Touchino, and it was commanded by Prince Troubetskof. 
Zarucki led another in the name of Marina's infant son. 
The third army, perhaps the only one whose chief sincerely 
desired to restore the national independence, obeyed Prince 
Procopius Liapounof, surnamed the White Tsar,* a sincere 
patriot according to Russian historians, but a pitiless bandit 
according to Polish and German annalists. Gonciewski, 
the successor of the Hetman at Moscow, took advantage of 
the dissensions which reigned among the besiegers ; he 
defeated them all in detail, and by a trick which even his 
desperate position cannot perhaps excuse, he succeeded in 
inducing LiapounoPs soldiers to mutiny against their 
general. Deceived by a letter which Gonciewski contrived 
should fall into their hands, they accused their general of 
having betrayed them, and cut him to pieces.-)- He was 
the commander in whom the people placed most confidence, 
and, immediately after his death, the besieging army dis- 
persed in discouragement. The soul of the national insur- 
rection, the Patriarch Hermogenes, fell into the hands of the 
Poles, and died in one of the dungeons of the Kremlin. 

After such a succession of disasters, the people refused to 
obey their boyards. In vain they called upon them to 
arm in defence of the orthodox faith and of their fatherland. 
Some, always unsuccessful, were abandoned by their 
soldiers ; others, shameless courtiers of so many different 

* Baer, pp. 150, 211. 
*r Gonciewski, having caused Liapounof's hand-writing to be counter- 
feited, showed a Russian prisoner a letter which he said he had received, 
and in which Liapounof promised to give his army into his hands. The 
prisoner was then liberated and ordered to take an answer from the Polish 
general ; but he went and denounced the pretended treason to the Council 
of Boyards. Zarucki's Cossacks fell upon Liapounof, and put him to 
death. Maskiewicz, pp. 101, 102. 



PATRIOTISM OF KOZMA MININ. 



275 



masters, inspired only contempt. In the midst of this terrible 
anarchy, each town had its own velleities of independence, 
took resolutions in the name of the whole Russian people, 
and appointed leaders whom it deposed at the end of a few 
days. Kazan and Viatka proclaimed the son of Marina ; 
Novgorod, rather than open its gates to the Poles, called in 
the Swedes, and swore allegiance to a son of Charles XI. 
A fugitive deacon, named Isidore,"* ventured, for the third 
time, to resuscitate the phantom of Demetrius, and for a few 
days he had many partisans, among whom we find the 
ambitious Troubetskoi, and even Zarucki, who had probably 
quarrelled for a moment with Marina. f Meanwhile the 
troops of Sigismund attacked all the most important towns 
one after another ; and violence and corruption seemed 
likely soon to place the whole of Russia in his power. 

An invincible force, nevertheless, remained to this un- 
happy country : its imperishable attachment to its religion 
and its nationality. If a man of good head and heart could 
be found, free from all personal ambition, to set up a 
standard, not in the name of any particular prince, but in 
the name of Russia and the Faith, that man would rally the 
whole nation around him. This glorious mission devolved 
upon an obscure citizen. His name was Kozma Minin, a 
butcher at Nijni-Novgorod. He harangued the inhabitants 
of that town with rude but effective eloquence. "Let us 
rise as one man," he said, " both young and old. The time 
has come for risking our lives for the faith. But this 
is not all. Let us sell our houses, let us put our wives and 
children in pawn to pay for soldiers, and let us deliver our 
country." % Thus spoke Minin, and as he spoke he acted. 
He gave all that he possessed to equip men for the war, asking 



* He is mentioned by historians as the Bandit of Pskof, as that town 
acknowledged his authority for some time. 

t Letopis o Miatejakh. % Ibid., p. 234. 



276 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



nothing for himself. The people, rendered enthusiastic by 
his words and example, chose him as their leader, and gave 
him the title of Elect of the whole Russian Empire. Minin had 
neither the talent nor the experience of a general, but be 
had strong sense, sound discernment, and a disinterestedness 
almost unexampled at this period. Reserving to himself the 
care of organising the national forces, and maintaining 
order and union among the confederates of all the provinces, 
he appointed to the command of the army a man as honest 
and patriotic as himself. Whilst the judgment and firmness 
of Minin presided in the council, the sword of Prince De- 
metrius Pojarski * drove the Poles from town after town. 
The entire people rallied around these two generous citizens. 
After a campaign marked by a succession of triumphs, 
Minin, far from desiring to retain the supreme power, for 
which he had gained affection and respect, declared that 
the country stood in need of a Tsar, and advised the people 
to choose the manwhom God should give, and the Russiaii 
land proclaim. On the 23rd of March, 1613, Michael 
Romanof was elected in Moscow, now utterly freed from 
the Polish yoke. 

At the first success gained by Prince Pojarski, the phantom 
of Demetrius and all the subaltern pretenders disappeared as 
if by enchantment. Zarucki perceived that an irresistible 
force was about to crush him, and he therefore sought to 
obtain an asylum. With Marina and her son in his train, 
he attempted ineffectually to rouse the Don Cossacks to 
revolt. After having been defeated near Voroneje, he 
gained the Volga, and seized upon Astracan, in the hope of 
being able to fortify himself within its walls, but the generals 
of Michael Romanof did not allow him sufficient time to 

* According to Lubienski, he was of low birth, although he bore the 
title of prince. " Posarcius postrenal notse homo ; " Lubienski, Opera 
Posthuma, p. 159. 



CONCLUSION. 



277 



carry his plan into effect. Driven from the town, and hotly 
pursued by superior forces, he was preparing to cross to 
the eastern coast of the Caspian sea, when, at the beginning 
of July, 1614, he was surprised on the banks of the Jaik, 
and given up to the Muscovite generals, together with 
Marina and the son of the second Demetrius.* They were 
immediately conducted to Moscow. Zarucki was condemned 
to be impaled, the punishment of traitors; and young Ivan, 
though hardly three years of age, was strangled — so much 
terror did the name of Demetrius even then inspire. 
Marina was confined in a prison, where she died in obscurity, 
abandoned, as it would appear, by her country and even by 
her family. f 

* Gos. Gramoty, vol. iii. pp. 97, 99. 
f Letopis o Miatejakh, p. 286. According to a version accredited in 
Poland, Marina, her son Ivan, and Zarucki were drowned under the ice by 
the Cossacks, who accompanied their flight. The testimony of the ancient 
annalist whom I have followed, is confirmed by several irrefragable docu- 
ments : 1. An official report establishes the fact that Zarucki and Marina 
were conducted as prisoners into Astracan, on the 6th of July, 1614 ; and, 
in the beginning of July, it would be difficult to find ice either on the 
Volga or the Jaik. (Gos. Gramoty, vol. iii. p. 99.) 2. A despatch from 
the Russian ambassadors in Poland, dated in 1644, makes frequent allusion 
to the death of Marina's son, which occurred in 1614, at Moscow. The 
following was the occasion of these allusions :— The abbot of the monastery 
of St. Simeon at Brzesc-Litowski (formerly the capital of the voyvody 
of Podlesia) declared to the ambassadors of Michael Fedorovitch in 
Poland, that he had been directed by Leo Sapieha, the Chancellor of 
Lithuania, to bring up a child who had been recommended to him by 
King Sigismund. Now, this child, on leaving the monastery, had assumed 
the name of Tsarevitch Ivan Dimitrovitch, and declared that he was the 
son of Demetrius and Marina Mniszek. The individual thus pointed out 
to the ambassadors was interrogated in their presence by some Polish 
senators. He confessed that his name was John Faustin, and that he was 
the son of a poor gentleman (szlachcic) of Podlachia, named Demetrius or 
Dmitri Louba. Being taken to Moscow, while a mere child, by his father, he 
lost him in a battle (probably during the siege sustained by Gonciewski). 
A gentleman named Bielinski took care of the orphan. "When Marina's 
son was brought to Moscow, Bielinski, in concert perhaps with Marina, 
attempted to substitute John Faustin for the son of Demetrius, whom he 
intended to carry away and educate in Poland. But the exchange could 



278 



DEMETRIUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



not be effected, and when Marina's real son had been strangled, it was 
thought some advantage might be derived from the child who had been 
destined to the honour of dying for the pretender. Bielinski gave John 
Faustin to the Chancellor of Lithuania, Leo Sapieha, who had him taught 
Polish and Russian, as well as Latin, in the convent of Brzese-Litowski. 
For several years, Sapieha kept his pupil in reserve, waiting a good oppor- 
tunity for bringing him forward. This opportunity never presented itself. 
On the death of the Chancellor, John Faustin, destitute of resources, was 
glad to escape starvation by accepting the post of clerk or secretary 
(pisar) to a Polish gentleman. Gos. Gramoty, vol. hi. pp. 411-413. The 
preceding story renders it possible that Marina's son may have been put to 
death, precisely on account of the unsuccessful attempt to carry him off 
which is here narrated. 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX A. 

Extract from the Report of the Inquiry into the Death of the Tsarevltch 
Demetrius Ivanovitch, held at Ooglitch, by order of Tsar Feodor Ivanovitch, 
by the boyard Prince Basil Ivanovitch Schuisky, the Coimcillor Andreas 
Petrovitch Kleschnin, and the Secretary Elisare'i Vylouzghin, in the 
month of May, 1591. 

(The first lines are wanting). 

******* 

And on the same day, 19th of May, in the evening, arrived at 
Ooglitch, the Prince Basil, and Andreas and Elisarei, and they 
demanded of Michael Nagoi how the Tsarevitch Demetrius had 
died, and what had been his disease ? Why he, Nagoi, had 
commanded the people to kill Michael Bitiagofski and his son 
Daniel, and Mikita Katchalof, and Daniel Tretiakof, and Joseph 
Volokhof ? and why, on the Tuesday, he had ordered them to 
take knives, and arquebuses, and an iron mace, and sabres, and 
place them upon the dead bodies ? Why he had collected 
together the people of the town and of the country ? Why he 
had made the bailiff Rousin Rakof swear to be on his side, and 
against whom ? — And Michael Nagoi said ; " On the 15th of May 
last, on a Saturday, at the sixth hour of the day, the bell tolled 
at the church of the Saviour ; and at that moment I, Michael, 
was in my house, and I thought there was a fire. I ran to the 



280 



APPENDIX. 



Tsarevitch, in the court-yard. He had just been assassinated by 
Osip Volokhof, Mikita Katchalof, and Daniel Bitiagofski. Many 
of the townspeople entered the court -yard, and Michael Bitiagofski 
came there also ; and the mob slew Michael Bitiagofski, his son 
Daniel, and the others. I did not give orders that they should be 
slain. I was by the side of the Tsarina. They were the towns- 
people who had come on hearing the sound of the tocsin. I did 
not order the bailiff Rakof to collect arms and place them on the 
dead bodies. He did that on his own responsibility. As for the 
oath which it is said I exacted from the bailiff, it is a calumny of 
his invention." 

And the bailiff, R. Rakof, said: "Michael Nagoi need not 
deny that he gave me those orders with regard to the arms : 
summon before you Gregory Nago'i, and Borisko Afanasief, the 
man-servant of Michael Nago'i ; inquire of them whether, by 
order of Michael Nago'i, I did not ask Borisko if he had some knife 
or other to put on the dead bodies. And Borisko told me that 
Gregory Nago'i had a Noga'i (Tartar) knife. I asked Gregory for 
a knife ; who told me that he had a Noga'i knife in a cabinet, and 
that his brother Michael had the key. Borisko went to ask 
Michael for the key, and he sent it ; then Gregory took the knife 
from the cabinet, and gave it to me ; then I placed it upon the 
dead bodies." 

And immediately Prince Basil, Andreas and Elisare'i sent for 
Gregory Nago'i and Borisko, the man-servant of Michael Nagoi, 
and interrogated them regarding the death of the Tsarevitch, and 
the assassination of Bitiagofski and his companions, as well as in 
reference to the knife. " Why did thy brother Michael cause 
knives to be collected and placed upon the dead bodies ? And 
didst thou give a knife to Rakof the bailiff ? " 

Gregory replied : " That the bailiff had asked him for a knife, 
that he, Gregory, had said that he had a Noga'i knife, but it was 
shut up in a cabinet of which his brother Michael had the key. 
Borisko went to ask for the key, and Michael sent it to him ; 
then Gregory gave the knife to Rakof." 

Prince Basil, Andreas and Elisare'i then cited before them, the 



THE OOGLITCH INQUIRY. 



281 



widow Vassilissa Volokhof, and the children who were with the 
Tsarevitch, Petrouchka Kolobof, Bajenko Toutchkof, Ivachko 
Krasenski, and Grishka Kozlofski, and inquired of them in what 
manner the Tsarevitch Demetrius had died. 

And Borisko Afanasief, the man of Michael Nago'i, being 
interrogated, replied : " Temir Zasetskoi having come to Ooglitch 
on Tuesday evening, Michael Nago'i began to say that it was 
necessary to collect knives and place them on the persons who 
had been killed, and he ordered the bailiff Rakof to collect knives 
and to put them upon the dead bodies ; he caused an iron mace 
to be taken from a cupboard in Bitiagofski's house, to place it 
also upon them. Rousin Rakof asked me for a knife, and I told him 
that Gregory had a Noga'i knife. I went to get the key from 
Michael, and Rakof placed the knife near the dead bodies. 
Timokha, Michael's man, on the Monday evening, fled away, no 
one knows whither." 

And Gregory Fedorof Nago'i, being interrogated, said : " On 
Saturday, the 15th of May, my brother Michael and I were 
returning into our house to dinner ; and hardly had we entered 
when the bell tolled : we thought there was a fire somewhere. 
We ran into the court-yard of the palace. The Tsarevitch was 
lying on the ground ; who had pierced himself with a knife in a 
fit of epilepsy, a disease to which he had previously been subject. 
When we arrived we found the Tsarevitch still alive, but he 
expired beneath our eyes. Michael Bitiagofski was in his house, 
and he ran to the palace. At the same time there entered many 
townspeople and peasants (posochnie), and it began to be said, I 
don't know who first thought of it, that the Tsarevitch had been 
murdered by Daniel the son of Bitiagofski, by Joseph Volokhof, 
and by Mikita Katchalof. Michael Bitiagofski tried to speak, 
but the townspeople fell upon him ; he fled into the house of 
planks (brousena'ia izba), but they burst open the door, dragged 
him out, and beat him to death. They killed Tretiakof at the 
same time. Daniel Bitiagofski and Katchalof were killed in the 
secretary's office (or tribunal). They carried Joseph Volokhof 
before the Tsarina in the church of the Saviour, and there, in 



282 



APPENDIX. 



presence of the Tsarina, lie was killed. Four of Bitiagofski' s 
men, two of Volokhof s, and three inhabitants, who were seized I 
don't know where, were also torn to pieces by the mob. I do 
not know why they were killed. We have gathered together the 
people of the town for Prince Schuisky, Andreas Kleschnin, and 
El. Vylouzghin ; and for fear of incurring the wrath of the 
Tsar, we have taken care that no one carried off the body of the 
Tsarevitch. It was the sacristan Ogouretz who tolled the bell. 
On Tuesday, the 19th of May, my brother Michael caused the 
bailiff Rakof to obtain knives, and ordered him to make them 
bloody with the blood of a fowl. He also ordered an iron mace 
to be taken, and my brother Michael caused all these weapons to be 
placed upon Joseph Volokhof, and Daniel Bitiagofski, Mikita 
Katchalof, and Daniel Tretiakof, as if they had murdered the 
Tsarevitch Demetrius." 

(The original document bears the signature of Michael Nago'i.) 

And Prince Basil, Andreas and Elisarei demanded of 
Rakof the bailiff: " Why did Michael Nagoi command thee to 
put knives and other arms upon the dead bodies ? " And Rakof 
answered : "To make believe that it was they who had killed 
the Tsarevitch." 

(Here a gap of several lines, destroyed by time, occurs in the 
original manuscript ; they seem to be the beginning of a written 
deposition or petition addressed by Rakof to the Tsar.) 

a * # * Ask Michael Nago'i and the people of Ooglitch 
why he made away with Michael (Bitiagofski), who was making 
neither noise nor mischief. And the Tsarina Maria and Michael 
Nago'i commanded the inhabitants to kill Michael Bitiagofski, 
who fled into the house of planks and Katchalof with him, but they 
were dragged out and massacred. And Michael Nago'i commanded 
the mob to kill Daniel, the son of Bitiagofski, and Tretiakof, in the 
secretary's office. He also caused to be killed, Lord, three 
inhabitants who had run to help Bitiagofski, and four of Bitia- 
gofski 's men. They shot a deformed woman belonging to 
Bitiagofski, and threw her into the water ; they also killed two 
men of Osip Volokhof's and one of Tretiakof's, and then he had 
them thrown into a hole. As for Bitiagofski 's other men, they 



THE OOGLITCH INQUIRY. 



283 



were put in prison, and he commanded that the house of the said 
Bitiagofski should he pillaged. After which, on the next day, 
Lord, he sent to me Borisko, one of his men, with threats and 
barking (insults). He said to me : ' What ! art thou still alive ? 
Why do we wait to put thee with those people who have been 
killed, Bitiagofski and his comrades ! ' They sought me out, 
Lord, me, thy serf, to make me perish, and Michael Nagoi said thy 
serf had not been sent for business, but to report whatever took 
place in their house. Gracious Tsar and master! show thy mercy ; 
let not thy wrath fall upon me as upon the serfs of Michael and his 
brother Andrew. Pardon, Lord Tsar ! " 

Stepan, priest of the church of the Saviour, being interrogated, 
said: " On Tuesday, the 18th of May, Michael Nago'i sent me 
with the bailiff, Rakof, and Ivan Mouranof, into the house of 
Bitiagofski, and with us were Trenka Vorojenkin, and Kondrachka, 
a tinman, inhabitants of Ooglitch. And he commanded us to 
take an iron mace from a cabinet. We brought it to him, and 
Michael gave it to the bailiff, telling him to take it, that it would 
be asked for, and that it must not be lost." 

And the widow Vassilissa Volokhof, being interrogated, said : 
" The Tsarevitch had been ill of his falling sickness on the 12th 
of May, and on Friday, finding him a little better, the Tsarina, 
his mother, took him with her to mass, and immediately after 
mass she told him to go and walk in the court-yard. On the 
following day, Saturday, after mass, the Tsarina told the 
Tsarevitch to go and amuse himself in the court-yard. There 
were with him his nurse Orina, the children his pages, the 
chamber-maid Maria Samo'ilof, and myself. The Tsarevitch was 
playing with a little knife (nojik), when suddenly this black 
disease returned upon him, which threw him on the ground, and 
then the Tsarevitch pierced his throat with his knife ; he struggled 
a long while, and then expired. Before this, this very year, 
during the great fast, he had had an attack of his falling sickness, 
and he had slightly (pokolol) wounded his mother the Tsarina 
Maria ; during another attack before Easter, the Tsarevitch had 
bitten the hand of Andre'ievna Nago'i, and we had a great deal of 



r 



284 



APPENDIX. 



trouble to make him let go. When the Tsarevitch had pierced 
himself with his knife, the Tsarina Maria ran up and began to 
beat me herself with a log, and gave me many blows on my 
head, crying out that it was my son Joseph, Michael Bitia- 
gofski, and Mikita Katchalof, who had killed the Tsarevitch. I 
fell on my face before her, beseeching her to cause a thorough 
inquiry to be made, and assuring her that my son had not come 
into the court-yard. But the Tsarina told Gregory Nago'i to 
beat my sides with the same log, so that I was almost left 
dead on the spot. Then they began to toll the bell of the 
Saviour, upon which many townspeople and others ran into the 
enclosure. And the Tsarina ordered these people to take me, 
and lifting me up, they held me bare-headed before the Tsarina. 
Michael Bitiagofski came into the enclosure and wished to speak 
to the townspeople and to Michael Nago'i, but the Tsarina and 
Michael Nago'i commanded them to kill him as well as his son, 
and Mikita Katchalof and Daniel Tretiakof, saying that they 
had assassinated the Tsarevitch. My son Joseph was at this 
moment in his house ; on hearing the tumult he ran to the 
house of Bitiagofski 's wife. There, the townspeople seized him, 
and brought him still alive before the Tsarina, together with 
the wife and daughters of Bitiagofski. The Tsarina said to the 
people, that my son Joseph Volokhof was one of the murderers of 
the Tsarevitch ; then they struck him and killed him, and they 
all set after him as after a hare. One of my son's men, named 
Vaska, tried to defend him and to prevent them from killing him. 
They killed him upon my son's body. Another of my people was 
massacred, because, seeing I was bareheaded, he put my cap 
on me ; wherefore they beat him so much that he died. There 
was a deformed woman in Bitiagofski's house, who used often 
to go to Andrew Nago'i 's. They spoke of her to the Tsarina, 
who used to send for her to be amused by her. When the 
Tsarevitch was dead, two days after, the Tsarina had her taken 
and killed, as if she had cast a spell upon the Tsarevitch." 

The pages of the Tsarevitch, who were playing with him, 
Petrouchka Samo'ilof, son of Kolobof, Vajenko Nejdanof, son of 



THE OOGLITCH INQUIRY. 



285 



Toutchkof, Ivachko Krasenski, and Grischka Kozlofski, said : 
" The Tsarevitch was playing at tytchka (sticking) with a knife, 
in the back yard : he had an attack of his falling sickness, and 
pierced himself with his knife." 

Being interrogated about the persons who were then near the 
Tsarevitch, Petrouchka and his comrades replied : " The nurse 
Orina, and the chambermaid Maria Samoi'lof, the wife of Kolobof.' ' 

Question. " Were Joseph Volokhof and Daniel Bitiagofski then 
near the Tsarevitch ? " 

Answer. " There were only ourselves, the nurse and the 
chambermaid. Joseph Volokhof and Daniel Bitiagofski were 
not there ; they did not visit the Tsarevitch." 

The commissioners interrogated the nurse Orina Jdanova 
wife of Toutchkof, and Maria Samo'ilof wife of Kolobof, the 
chambermaid of the Tsarevitch, in presence of the Tsarina in 
the church. 

Orina Jdanova replied : " On Saturday the Tsarevitch went 
out into the yard. He was playing with the pages, with a knife 
in his hand. I did not pay attention how the black disease came 
upon the Tsarevitch ; but at that moment he had a knife in his 
hand, and pierced himself with it. I took him, and he expired in 
my arms." 

Maria Samo'ilof said : "On Saturday, the Tsarevitch went 
into the enclosure with his pages, and amused himself with a 
knife ; he had an attack of his black disease ; he fell on the 
ground, and pierced himself with the knife which he had in 
his hand." 

The commissioners having enquired of Andrew Nagoi" how the 
Tsarevitch had died, and how he had bitten his daughter during a 
fit of illness, Andrew Alexandrof Nago'i replied : " The Tsare- 
vitch was in the back court amusing himself with some children ; 
he was playing with a knife. Suddenly they cried out in the 
court that the Tsarevitch was dead. The Tsarina ran down. 
I was at table, and I ran after the Tsarina. The Tsarevitch 
was dead in the arms of his nurse, and it was said that he had 
been murdered ; as for me, I did not see who struck him. But 



286 



APPENDIX. 



the Tsarevitch was subject to the falling sickness. During the 
great fast, he bit my daughter's hand horribly, in my house ; he 
has bitten his own hands during an attach, being with his pages 
and his nurses. When the disease seized him, and any one tried 
to hold him, then he bit, without knowing what he was doing, all 
who were around him. I do not know who gave orders that 
Bitiagofski and the others should be killed. The mob from the 
town massacred them. As for me, I remained standing by the 
corpse of the Tsarevitch ; I afterwards carried him into the 
church." 

(This deposition is signed by the hand of Andrew Nagoi.) 

Fedote Afanasief, called Ogouretz, a widowed pope, the 
sacristan of the church of St. Constantine, being interrogated 
as to the person who had given him orders to toll the bell, said : 
" When the Tsarevitch Demetrius died, I was at home in the 
church of the Saviour, and the guard Maximko Dimitrei'ef 
Kouznetsof tolled the bell. I went immediately into the street, 
and as I was running towards the church of the Saviour, I met 
Soubota Protopopof, a gentleman of the kitchen, who ordered me 
to toll at the church of the Saviour ; and giving me a blow on 
the neck, he ordered me to toll loudly. He gave me this order 
in presence of Gregory Nagoi, and said it came from the Tsarina 
Maria ; wherefore I tolled the bell. As for the death of the 
Tsarevitch, he said that the prince was playing in the back 
enclosure with a knife, that his old illness seized upon him, that 
he fell on the ground, and that he pierced himself with his knife." 

Gregory Nago'i said : "That he did not hear what Protopopof said 
to the pope Ogouretz, but that Fedote had told him that Soubota 
had commanded him to toll the bell. That Michael Bitiagofski 
had run up to him on hearing the sound of the bell, and that he 
had remained a while with him in the steeple." 

Soubota Protopopof being confronted with the pope Fedote, 
said: " Michael Nago'i having entered the court-yard, commanded 
me to toll the bell to collect the people together. I told the 
sacristan Ogouretz to toll it. Many persons having run up, 
Michael Nagoi ordered them to kill Bitiagofski. Before that, 



THE OOGLITCH INQUIRY. 



287 



they were at variance, because Michael Nagoi had asked 
Bitiagofski for money from the treasury without any order from 
the Tsar, and Bitiagofski refused to give him any, alleging 
the express prohibition of the Tsar. As for Bitiagofski and his 
companions who died with him, the mob killed them I know 
not why." 

The commissioners having summoned into their presence the 
Archimandrite Fedorite, the Igoumen Savateia, and the officers 
of the kitchen and household of the Tsarina, interrogated them 
on the subject of the Late events. 

The Archimandrite Fedorite, of the Convent of the Resurrection, 
said ; "On Saturday, the 15th of May, I officiated at the convent 
of St. Alexis ; at six o'clock in the day, after mass, they tolled 
the bell at the church of the Saviour, while I was with the 
Igoumen Savateia. We sent servants to inquire what was the 
matter, and we thought that there was a fire somewhere. But 
our servants reported to us that they had learned from the towns- 
people and peasants that the Tsarevitch had just been assassinated, 
it was not known by whom. We set forth, and already the 
corpse of the prince was in the church of the Saviour : Bitia- 
gofski, his son, Mikita Katchalof, Daniel Tretiakof, and several 
of their men, as well as some inhabitants, had been killed. 
They led before the Tsarina in the church, and in our presence, 
Joseph Volokhof, half dead, and they finished him by dint of 
beating him in presence of the Tsarina. They also brought 
into the church the wife and the two daughters of Bitiagofski to 
kill them, but we saved them, and they were guarded by the 
inhabitants in the church : the mother of Joseph Volokhof was 
conducted to the palace, and placed under a strong guard." 
(Signature of the Archimandrite.) 

The Igoumen David of the Pokrovski monastery. His 
monastery is two versts from Ooglitch, on the other side of the 
Volga : " He heard the tocsin, and believed it was sounded on 
account of a fire. Some gentlemen told him that the Tsarevitch 
had had an attack of epilepsy, during which he had stabbed him- 
self ; that Bitiagofski and the others had been killed by the 



288 



APPENDIX. 



populace of the town and suburbs, as well as by some Cossacks of 
the tribunal, because they wished to speak to the people." 

The Igoumen Savateia, of the Convent of St. Alexis, deposes 
the same facts as the Archimandrite. He adds " that Bogdat, a 
cook, came to fetch him on the part of the Tsarina to the convent 
of the Saviour, and to command him to go into the town, because 
the Tsarevitch was dead. He saw the murdered Tsarevitch in 
the church, and the Tsarina said that it was Katchalof, the son of 
Bitiagofski, and Joseph Volokhof, who had killed him. Bitiao-ofski 
and his companions were already dead in the town. Joseph 
Volokhof was still alive, standing against a pillar of the church. 
When we had left the church, they told us that Joseph had been 
killed, but I do not know who struck the blow." 

(Signature of Savateia.) 

Bogdan, pope of St. Constantine, the confessor of Gregory 
Nagoi : "On the 15th of May, I was at dinner with Michael 
Bitiagofski, when the alarm-bell was tolled at the church of the 
Saviour. Michael thought there was a fire somewhere, and sent 
out some servants to inquire. They returned to inform him that 
the Tsarevitch was dead. Then Michael ran into the court-yard 
of the palace, which was filled with people armed with pitchforks, 
hatchets, and sabres. He was going to ask them why they had 
come with weapons, but they fell upon him. He took refuge in 
the house of planks with Tretiakof, but they broke open the 
door, dragged them out, and massacred them for having wished 
to speak to the mob. At that moment Daniel Bitiagofski was at 
dinner with his father." 

(This deposition is signed by Bogdan.) 

Ivan Mouranof, criminal starost {goubno'i starosta), said : " The 
Tsarevitch was in the court-yard with some children, his 
pages ; he was amusing himself with sticking a knife (techilsa 
v'tytchkon nojem), when an attack of the high disease threw him 
on the ground, and began to beat (convulse) him. Then he 
himself stuck his knife into his throat, of which he died. 
Immediately, the tumult spread through the town, and many 
people of Ooglitch and of the country ran up with hatchets and 



THE OOGLITCH INQUIRY. 



289 



pitchforks. Michael Nago'i made them kill Bitiagofski, his son, 
Katchalof, Tretiakof, and Osip Volokhof, because they began to 
dispute with him." 

(This deposition was written, and presented to the commissioners 
by an under-secretary, who had received the oath of the witness.) 

Several kitchen-officers of the household of the Tsarevitch 
made depositions in conformity with the preceding. Most had 
seen nothing, and depose only what they had heard. 

Cyril Mokhovikof was present. He adds : " The Jit long 
convulsed the Tsarevitch. When he had killed himself, they set 
to work to sound the tocsin, and Bitiagofski ran to the door of 
the court-yard, but it was shut. I ran thither also, and the door 
was opened. When we entered the court, Bitiagofski began to 
speak to the people ; then they fell upon me, beat me almost to 
death, and broke my arms and legs." The witness does not 
know how many people were killed ; he only knows that they 
beat him almost to death (on sam oubit na smert). He mentions 
five of the people as having begun acts of violence with Michael 
Nagoi. 

Five other witnesses, officers of the kitchen, repeat the same 
story. At the moment of the Tsarevitch' s death, they were 
taking in the dishes for dinner. 

Semeika Youdin relates the same version, in almost the same 
terms : he was standing by the sideboard at the moment when 
the Tsarevitch fell, and he saw it all. 

Four boyard-children (deti bo'iarskie), attached to the house- 
hold of the Tsarina, made the same deposition in very nearly the 
same words. They ran away when the tumult began. 

Three other officers of the kitchen repeat the same narrative, 
which they had heard from Petrouchka Kolobof, a page of the 
Tsarevitch, and an eye-witness of his death. 

(All these testimonies are expressed in the same terms. The 
attack of epilepsy which threw down the child lasted, it seems, 
/or some time. " His falling sickness beat him a long while 
(bilo dolgo)." These words occur in almost all the depositions. 
How came it that no one took the knife out of his hand ?) 

o 



290 



APPENDIX. 



Andrew Kozlof, a gentleman in the Tsarina's service, did not 
come to the place until after the death of the Tsarevitch. He 
declares that it was Michael Nagoi who gave the order to kill 
Bitiagofski and his companions ; he does not know from what 
motive. Then follow the insignificant depositions of numerous 
domestics, relative to the massacre of Bitiagofski. One of them, 
Stepanko Koriakin, his arquehuss-bearer (pistchik), deposes that 
his master's house had been pillaged, that all the horses had been 
carried off, and that Gregory Nagoi had taken for himself a sabre 
damascened with silver. He mentions among the pillagers and 
murderers Michael and Danilko Gregorief. 

Danilko Gregorief, a groom, ran up at the sound of the tocsin 
with the inhabitants of the town and the Cossacks of the 
tribunal : they told him that Bitiagofski and Katchalof had 
assasinated the Tsarevitch ; he joined with those who were 
striking them ; and both this witness and his father admit that 
they beat them to death. ** Everybody went quietly (mirom) to 
the house of Bitiagofski. They pillaged it, and drank all the 
liquors that they found in the cellar, and stove in the barrels. 
They took nine of Bitiagofski's horses, and led them to the 
Tsarina's stables, but, on the Tuesday, some of the townspeople 
brought them back to Bitiagofski's house, and took care that they 
were kept in safety. The witness, on his part, carried off a bay 
horse, and took a quiver, which is still in his house. He did not 
see the damascened sabre which was mentioned just before." 

The porter of the secretary's office, Avdokimko Mikhail of, 
thus deposed : " Three days after the death of Bitiagofski, on 
the Tuesday when the commissioners were talked of, the bailiff 
Rousin Rakof went to the secretary's office, and Timokha, one of 
Michael Nagoi's men, brought a live fowl, two arquebuses, five 
knives, and an iron mace ; and they ordered me to cut off the 
fowl's neck, which I did. The blood was collected in a basin, 
and Vaska Malafeief, an inhabitant of Ooglitch, helped me to 
put this blood upon the above-mentioned weapons." 

This deposition was confirmed by Vaska Malafeief, who adds that 
Rakof placed these weapons on the persons killed on the Saturday. 



THE OOGLITCH INQUIRY. 



291 



Being interrogated a second time, Michael Gregorief repeats 
his narrative of the death of the Tsarevitch, and of the massacre 
which followed it, adding that, when Bitiagofski entered the 
court-yard, he ran up stairs, believing that the Tsarevitch was up 
stairs* They pursued him thither, and he was massacred by 
order of the Tsarina and of Michael Nago'i. The horses taken 
from Bitiagofski 's stable were brought into the stable of the 
Tsarevitch. Michael Nago'i had them mounted by some inha- 
bitants of Ooglitch, who made use of them, during three days, to 
go and look out on different roads. Other inhabitants took these 
horses from Rakof, and brought them back to Bitiagofski's 
stable. 

Michael and Danilko Gregorief were placed under arrest. 
Several persons employed in the Chancery deposed that, after the 
death of Bitiagofski, they were threatened, and obliged to 
conceal themselves, and that the treasury had been robbed of 
twenty roubles destined for the expenses of the Tsarina and the 
Tsarevitch. 

After having heard several other unimportant depositions, the 
commissioners received a petition addressed to the Tsar by the 
officers of the tribunal at Ooglitch. They beseech him not to 
confound them with the guilty, Their narrative of the death of 
the Tsarevitch and the murder of the pretended assassins, is 
conformable in every respect to the preceding versions ; they 
add : " Bitiagofski cried out that Michael Nago'i commanded his 
death, because he, Nago'i, employed sorcerers to cast spells upon 
the Tsar." The petition ends thus: "Gracious Lord Tsar, 
show thy clemency, that we, thy orphans {siroty to'ie), may not 
perish in this massacre ! Let us not die an undeserved death ! 
Lord Tsar, have pity upon us ! " 

Some forty peasants depose that they ran up at the sound of 
the tocsin, and that they witnessed the massacre of Bitiagofski. 
The leader of these peasants, having remonstrated with the 
inhabitants, narrowly escaped being knocked on the head. A 

* This deposition is remarkable. How was it that Bitiagofski, on 
entering the yard, did not see the dead Tsarevitch ] 

o 2 



292 



APPENDIX. 



peasant who exclaimed that they did wrong to kill men thus, 
without the order of the Tsar, was cast into prison. 

Two inhabitants of Ooglitch relate that they were pursued as 
partisans of Bitiagofski, by a score of furious men, and obliged 
to conceal themselves in a wood until the arrival of the com- 
missioners. 

On the 21st of May, the widow of Bitiagofski presented the 
following requisition to the commissioners, against Michael and 
Gregory Nago'i : 

" Before my Lord the Tsar and Grand Prince of all the 
Russias, Feodor Ivanovitch, kneels and weeps an unfortunate 
widow, the suppliant of thine Highness, Avdotitsa, the poor wife 
of Bitiagofski, with her daughters Dounka and Machka.* I 
demand justice upon Michael and Gregory Nago'i. They have 
ordered, Lord, the death of my husband Michael, and of my son 
Danilo, from malice, because my husband had had a quarrel 
with Michael Nago'i, on the subject of his employing sorcerers 
and witches for the Tsarevitch Demetrius. A sorcerer, Andri- 
ouchka Motchalof, lived always, Lord, with Michael and Gregory 
Nago'i, and with Zenobia Andreievna, the wife of Nago'i. And 
Michael Nago'i commanded this sorcerer to consult fate, regarding 
thyself and the Tsarina, to know whether you would be long on 
the throne. This is what I have learned from my husband. 
And on the day of his death, he had had a quarrel because 
Michael Nagoi exacted forced labour contrary to thy imperial 
order. It was during an attack of the high disease that the 
Tsarevitch pierced himself with his knife ; and previously, Lord, 
during the great fast, he had had an attack in his room, and he 
then wounded the Tsarina his mother ; and this happened to him 
every time that he had an attack. Andrew Nagoi, the nurse, 
and some boyards had hard work to hold him. He bit their 
hands, and whatever he caught with his teeth he carried away 
(or eat it : to otesf). When the Tsarevitch died, Lord, my 
husband and my son were at dinner in their house, with Bogdan, 
the pope of St. Constantine, and confessor of Gregory. At the 

* All these names are in the diminutive form, as a mark of humility. 



THE OOGLITCH INQUIRY. 



293 



sound of the tocsin, iny husband and my poor child ran to the 
palace, believing that there was a fire ; then Michael and Gregory, 
from the hatred which they bore to them, commanded Michael 
Gregorief, the squire of the Tsarina, and his son Danilko, to kill 
my husband. My son was not at the palace ; he was killed at 
the secretary's office. After these murders, Michael and Gregory 
sent Gregorief and Danilko to our house, and they dragged me 
and my daughter into the court-yard of the palace, half naked 
and with heads uncovered, and they stole our horses without 
remission. Glorious Lord Tsar ! show thy mercy ; command 
that our horses may be restored." 

And on the 2d of June, the Lord Tsar and Grand Duke of all 
the Russias, Feodor Ivanovitch, having taken cognisance of this 
enquiry, commanded the commissioners, the boyards, and the 
secretaries, to meet at the house of the Patriarch Job, in a general 
synod, that the report might be read to them. 

There, the Metropolitan Gelasus said : "I declare before thee, 
Patriarch Job, and before the synod, that on the day on which 
I went from Ooglitch to Moscow, the Tsarina Maria, having sent 
for me, told me with great vehemence, that the death of 
Bitiagofski and the other gentlemen was a sin and a crime, and 
that she begged me to bear her humble supplication to our Lord 
the Tsar, that he would show his mercy towards that poor earth- 
worm, her brother Michael." 

The petition of Rousin Rakof, bailiff of Ooglitch, was next 
read, addressed to the same Metropolitan Gelasus, whom he 
entreats to speak to the Tsar in his favour, that he may not be 
confounded with the guilty. This letter reproduces Rakof's 
deposition with new details. " Gregory and Michael Nagoi," he 
writes, " made him kiss the cross (take an oath) six times in one 
day, and swear not to betray them. * Be one of us,' they said to 
him. They obliged him with some others to place on several of 
the dead bodies four knives, a mace, a sabre, and two arquebuses, 
stained with the blood of a fowl, which they killed in the 
secretary's office. It was from the hatred which they bore to 
Bitiagofski that the Nagoi had him assassinated. On the same 



294 



APPENDIX. 



day, Michael Nagoi had quarrelled with Bitiagofski about certain 
corvees. The Tsar had deprived Michael of fifty corvees, and 
Bitiagofski was resolved to execute his order. On the day of the 
massacre, Michael Nago'i was dead drunk (mertvo pian)." 

After having; taken cognisance of the events at Ooo-litch, and 
of the depositions of the Metropolitan Gelasus, the Patriarch 
expressed all the horror with which he was inspired by these 
abominable murders. " On the part of Michael and Gregory 
Nago'i, and of the inhabitants of Ooglitch, there is evident 
treason," he said, " against our Lord the Tsar and Grand Duke of 
all the Russias, Feodor Ivanovitch. The Tsarevitch Demetrius 
received his death by a judgment of God. Michael Nagoi 
ordered the massacre of Bitiagofski and other loyal officers of the 
Tsar, who were striving to divert the people from rebellion, 
because Bitiagofski had reproached him with maintaining the 
sorcerer, Andriouchka Motchalof, and other magicians. For 
which crimes, Michael, his brother, his servants, and the inha- 
bitants of Ooglitch, have merited all chastisement. It is an 
affair of the age, which God judges, and the Lord Tsar. All is 
in his hands ; both punishment and mercy. As for us, our duty 
is to pray the Lord and his holy mother, and the great saints who 
protect Russia, Peter, Alexis, John, and all the saints, for the 
Tsar Feodor Ivanovitch and the Tsarina Irene ; may they live and 
reign long, and enjoy internal peace ! 

On the same day, the boyards having reported the whole matter 
to the Tsar, he commanded that an account of it should be 
drawn up. He also commanded that several compromised persons, 
especially the sorcerer Motchalof, should be arrested and brought 
to Moscow, under a strong guard. It was recommended that 
Motchalof should be brought with irons on his hands and feet, 
and that great care should be taken that he made no attempt on 
his life. — Gos. Gramoty, vol. ii. pp. 103 — 123. 



custom or st. george's day. 



295 



APPENDIX B. 

THE CUSTOM OF ST. GEORGE'S DAY. 

M. Pavlof, the author of an interesting treatise on the reign of 
Boris Godounof, Ob istoritche shorn znatchenii tsarstvovaniia 
Borisa Godounova* has at some length discussed this question, 
the whole importance of which does not seem to have been duly 
appreciated by Karamzin. According to M. Pavlof, Boris, by 
abolishing the custom of St. George, that is to say, by depriving 
the peasants of the right of changing their residence and hiring 
their labour to whomsoever they pleased, had proposed to himself 
to humble the great proprietors, and obtain the attachment of the 
class of small gentlemen. These latter were then called Deti 
boiarsJcie, (boyard-children) ; they formed the effective force of the 
Russian armies, and constituted in Russia, at that period, what 
was afterwards called the middle class. 

There can be no doubt that by attaching to himself this part of 
the nation, so numerous and really so powerful, Boris took the 
most effectual means for strengthening his authority, and pre- 
paring the successful issue of his ambitious plans ; but it seems 
doubtful to me whether the measure in question was calculated to 
conciliate the petty nobility. 

M. Pavlof sustains his theory by the following argument ; — 
" The great proprietors," he says, " the princes and boyards, 
having large revenues at their disposal, paid better wages to the 
cultivators whom they employed on their estates, and exacted less 
work from them. The great proprietor is universally more 
generous and less exacting than the small proprietor ; as the 
necessity of economy renders the latter strict and often avaricious. 

* Moscow, 1850 ; pp. 132, 8vo. 



296 



APPENDIX. 



Hence arose the natural result that the small proprietors frequently 
could not get hands to cultivate their fields. But from the 
moment when the peasant was no longer free to change his village, 
and to offer his service to whomsoever paid him best, the petty 
nobility no longer had to fear the competition of the boyards, and 
could always rely upon a body of labourers, resident in a fixed 
locality." 

I admit, with M. Pavlof, that the great proprietors must have 
lost considerably by the abolition of the St. George's privilege, 
but it does not appear clear to me that the small proprietors could 
have gained much by it. On the contrary, the measure, in my 
opinion, like all abrupt and radical changes, must have been 
burdensome to all interests. In fact, for the result indicated by 
M. Pavlof to have taken place, the population must needs have 
been divided proportionably to the extent of the cultivable land ; 
such a division nowhere exists, and it certainly did not exist in 
Russia at the end of the sixteenth century. The same cause 
which procured the large proprietors a larger number of hands 
than the small proprietors could obtain, must have distributed the 
cultivators in groups proportionally much larger on the estates of 
the former than on those of the latter. But if we examine, with 
M. Pavlof, the composition of the class of boyard-children, and 
if we observe, as he has well remarked, that most of them were 
attached to the person, or formed part of the clientry of the great 
nobles, we cannot doubt that nearly all the groups of population 
of any extent were under the immediate dependence of a boyard. 
This state of things prevailed through all Europe in the Middle 
Ages, and it does not seem possible to me to have been otherwise 
in Russia. 

The annexation to the Grand Duchy of Muscovy of the king- 
doms of Kazan and Astracan ; the prosperity of the Cossack 
republics on the Dnieper, the Don and the Volga ; and lastly, 
the innate and ardent taste of the Slavonic race for a nomadic 
and adventurous life, seem to have determined an alarming 
amount of emigration towards the southern provinces at the close 
of the sixteenth century. To this movement, which threatened 



CUSTOM OF ST. GEORGE ; S DAY. 



297 



to depopulate ancient Muscovy, Boris sought to apply a violent 
and hazardous remedy, such as might be devised by a despot of 
small enlightenment. It is probable that he displayed much 
partiality in the execution of a measure so difficult in its appli- 
cation, and that he was generally indulgent to the small 
proprietors, and rigorous to the boyards his rivals. 

It is very difficult at the present day to appreciate exactly the 
immediate consequences of a measure, the object and details of 
which are so imperfectly known to us. It is not, however, rash 
to suppose that the disturbance which it caused was deep and 
general, and that the class of peasants was profoundly irritated by 
it. May we not attribute to this cause the great famine of 1601 
— 1603, and the readiness with which the impostors who usurped 
the name of Demetrius were received, and the prodigious increase 
of the little republic of Zaporogues, at the same period. For 
nearly a century their camp on the Dnieper, with its right of 
asylum like the Rome of Romulus, harassed its neighbours, and 
gained recruits from all the fugitives of the Slavic provinces. 

According to M. Pavlof, the intention of Boris was not to reduce 
the free peasants to the condition of serfs ; he desired only one 
thing, to prevent them from changing their residence at their 
caprice. I confess that I find it rather difficult to perceive the 
difference between serfs and peasants, possessing no personal 
property, and obliged to work for their lord on the condition 
which he chose to dictate. If the abolition of the privilege of 
St. George did not reduce the Russian peasants to the condi- 
tion of serfs, it must have resulted in leading the greater part 
of them to regard serfdom as an advantage. 



298 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX C. 

THE COSSACKS. 

" They (the Cossacks), are Greeks in religion, called in their 
languages Rus (Rouss\ Russia) ; they hold in great veneration 
days of festivals and fasts, in which they employ eight or nine 
months of the year, and which they make to consist in abstinence 
from flesh. They persist so obstinately in this formality, that 
they persuade themselves that their salvation lies in the distinction 
of meats : therefore, by way of recompense, I do not believe that 
there is any nation in the world like theirs as far as regards 
liberty of drinking ; for they are no sooner recovered from intoxi- 
cation, than they immediately (as the saying is) take another 
hair of the beast ; this, however, applies only to their times of 
leisure, for when they are at war, or meditate any enterprise, they 
are extremely sober, and have nothing coarser than their dress. 
They are shrewd and subtle, ingenious, and liberal without any 
intention or ambition to become very rich, but they greatly love 
their liberty, without which the} 7 would not wish to live, and it is 
on this account that they are greatly inclined to revolt, and to 
rebel against the lords of the country when they see themselves 
ill-used by them, so that seven or eight years rarely pass without 
seeing them mutiny or insurge against them. In other respects, 
they are* men of bad faith, traitors and perfidious, to whom you 
must trust only when they are of a good sort : they are of a very 
robust constitution, enduring easily heat or cold, hunger and 
thirst, indefatigable in war, bold, courageous, or rather foolhardy, 
who make no account of their life : where they show the greatest 
address and valour is in fighting in the Tabord ( Tabor, a camp 
enclosed with chariots), and concealed by chariots, for they are 



THE COSSACKS. 



299 



very adroit in shooting with their guns, which are their ordinary 
weapons, and in defending places. They are not bad also at sea, 
but on horseback they are not also of the best. I remember 
having seen 200 Polish horsemen alone put to rout 2000 of their 
best men. It is quite true that 100 of these Cossacks, under the 
shelter of their tabords, do not fear 1000 Poles, nor even 2000 
Tartars ; and if they were as valiant on horseback as they are on 
foot, I esteem that they would be invincible. They are of fine 
stature, active and nervous. They like to go well clad, which 
they make sufficiently apparent when they have gained rich 
booty from their neighbours, for otherwise they cover themselves 
with rather common vestments : they naturally enjoy perfect 
health, and even are tolerably exempt from that endemic disease 
of all Poland, which the physicians call Blica (Plica Polonica), 
because the hairs of all those who are attacked by it become 
horribly interwoven and mixed together ; the natural inhabitants 
of the country call it Gosches (Korosta). Very few are seen to 
die of sickness, unless it is in extreme old age ; most die in the 
bed of honour, and get killed in war. 

" The nobility among them, of whom there are very few, 
resemble the Polish, and it seems that they are ashamed to be 
of any other religion than the Roman, to which they attend 
every day, although all the grandees, and all those who bear the 
name of princes, are sprung from the Greek. 

" The peasants there are altogether miserable, obliged as they 
are to labour three days a week, with their horses and arms, in 
the service of their lord, and to pay him, according to the lands 
which they hold, a quantity of bushels of grain, and of capons, 
fowls, goslings, and pullets, to wit, at the terms of Easter, Pente- 
cost, and the Nativity ; moreover, to carry wood for the service 
of their said lord, and to do a thousand other corvees to which 
they ought not to be subjected ; without mentioning the ready 
money which they exact from them, as well as the tithe of their 
sheep, pigs, honey, and all fruits, in addition to the third ox every 
three years. In short, they are constrained to give to their 
masters whatever it pleases them to demand, so that it is no 



300 



APPENDIX. 



marvel that these misersble fellows never amass anything, subject 
as they are to conditions so harsh : but this is only a small thing, 
for their lords have absolute power not only over their property, 
but also over their lives, so great is the liberty of the Polish 
nobles (who live, as it were, in paradise, and the peasants in 
purgatory), so that if it happens that these poor peasants fall as 
serfs into the hands of wicked lords, they are in a more de- 
plorable state than the convicts at the galleys. It is this 
slavery which causes many of them to escape, and that the 
most courageous among them flee towards the Zaporogues, which 
is the place of retreat of the Cossacks on the Boristhenes, and 
after having spent some time there, and made a voyage by sea, 
they are reputed Zaporouski Cossacks, and by such recruits, their 
legions always increase immeasurably." — Description d'Ukranie, 
qui sont plusieurs provinces du Royaume de Pologne, par le 
JSieur de Beauplan. Rouen, 1660. 



APPENDIX D. 

THE BATTLE OF KLOUCHINO. 

LETTER FROM ZOLKIEWSKI TO THE KING OP POLAND. 

" Very illustrious and gracious Lord, our most gracious Lord ! 

" Offering my very humble services to the gracious benevolence 
of your Majesty, my most gracious Lord, 

" These are the motives which prevent me from frequently 
addressing to your Mnjesty my reports on what occurs here : 
1. The roads are not sure, because of marauders : 2. So long 
as affairs are not decided I am in expectation, and I do not wish 
to trouble your Majesty with projects that are still uncertain. 
I have already informed your Majesty how I arrived here, before 
this entrenched camp occupied by the enemies. They there 
awaited the succour of the army of Prince Demetrius Ivanovitch 



BATTLE OF KLOUCHIXO. 



301 



Schuisky, and I, as far as my means permitted me, applied 
myself to confine them therein, surrounding them with palisades, 
establishing posts of observation, absolutely preventing every 
sortie, cutting off their provisions and forage. Continually I sent 
detachments towards Mojaisk in order to obtain news of Prince 
Demetrius, and I also employed spies to get information regard- 
ing him. But being forced to write briefly to your Majesty, I 
pass over many details, for incessant affairs leave me only a little 
time to write ; besides, Sire, I do not wish to fatigue your 
Majesty with the perusal of a long letter. I have directed M. 
Domarecki, the Nuncio of Lwow, to write all particulars to your 
Majesty's council. In sum, the main events are as follows: — 
On the 3rd of July, about two or three o'clock in the morning, I 
was informed that Prince Demetrius Schuisky had left Mojaisk, 
and gone to pass the night at a distance of eight miles from his 
camp. On Friday and Saturday, the enemy had concentrated all 
their forces, both Muscovites and foreigners. These latter, under 
Pontus de la Gardie and Edward Horn, formed a body of more 
than five thousand well-armed men, and, as it afterwards appeared, 
all determined soldiers. The Muscovites were more than thirty 
thousand, with a number of men of rank and voyvodes, Andrew 
Galitzin, Daniel Mezetski, Jakof Boriatinski, Basil Boutourlin 
and others. It was with these forces that they hoped to annihilate 
your Majesty's army, and to raise the siege of Smolensko. I 
immediately collected together the captains and colonels of your 
Majesty's troops. Many grave and powerful motives, which it 
would be tedious to enumerate, dissuaded me from awaiting the 
enemy. Only I could have desired to delay until the 6th of July, 
on which day, resigning myself to Our Lord God, I was resolved 
to try my fortune. Leaving, therefore, a part of my army before 
the entrenched camp, with all the infantry and Cossacks of your 
Majesty, on the same day, the 3rd of July, towards evening I set 
out on the march, lightly equipped, without waggons, towards 
Klouchino, where the hostile army intended to establish itself, 
distant about four miles from our camp. We marched all night. 
At day-break, my vanguard discovered the enemy by the noise of 



302 



APPENDIX. 



their camp,* which was close at hand, in front of Klouchino. 
We were not expected, for they were not on their guard, not 
having taken the trouble to light their fires, and we surprised 
them while they were literally still in bed. But as, in consequence 
of the bad roads, our army could not make haste, I was con- 
strained to wait an hour or more, until our men had got out of 
those bad roads ; and meanwhile the enemy awoke, and their 
outposts discovered us. Accordingly, yesterday, on the 4th of 
July, we came to blows with the Muscovites, before sunrise. 
The confusion into which they were thrown by our unexpected 
arrival, was of considerable advantage to us, for they despised us 
on account of our small numbers, and expected our attack the 
less, because they knew us to be fully occupied with the invest- 
ment of the camp of Tsarevo-Zaimistche, and could not believe 
that we should have the audacity to come and meet them. They 
began to form in line before us, especially the French- foreigners, 
very well armed as it befits men of war. The fight lasted for 
three hours at least with doubtful issue (ancipiti Marte). Now 
that a battle is decided by a charge, astonishment will be felt 
perhaps that it was so long difficult to judge on which side victory 
would declare itself. But the Almighty in his mercy granted us 
this favour that, after many vicissitudes on both sides, the 
intrepidity and constancy of your Majesty's troops overcame the 
enemy. At first the Muscovites took to flight, and afterwards the 
foreigners. Your Majesty's soldiers, sabreing and unhorsing the 
foreign cavalry, entered pell-mell with them into their camp, 
from whence they drove them into the woods. The foreign 
infantry, however, remained in good order under shelter of the 
woods, so that it was difficult for our cavalry to charge them. 
My foot soldiers and those of the Starost Schmielnicki were not 
above 100, for we had been obliged to leave the rest at Tsarevo- 
Zaimistche ; so that there was no means of dislodging these 
fellows. Besides these, there were still several squadrons of 
French gendarmes, but their leaders Pontus and Edward Horn 

* 11 Ex fremitu castrorivm" says Zolkiewski, mingling as much Latin as 
possible with his Polish, according to custom. 



BATTLE OF KLOUCH1NO. 



303 



had got out of the way after the first charge. Delaville had been 
left ill at Pogoreloe ; so they had no captains. The Muscovite 
voyvodes, Galitzin and the others, had fled also. As for 
Demetrius Ivanovitch Schuisky, he remained within a small 
entrenchment which he had thrown up during the night. This 
entrenchment and Schuisky's camp communicated with the camp 
of the foreign soldiers. After having driven the enemy from the 
field of battle, I began to consider how, with the help of God, it 
would be possible to obtain a decisive victory. As soon as my 
men had returned from the pursuit, I was going to command 
them to assail the foreigners' camp, when, at that very moment, the 
French began to pass over to our side, by twos and threes, which 
gave me the hope that all the others would soon submit to your 
Majesty's grace. I was parleying with them, when Pontus and 
Edward Horn, who had until then remained concealed in the woods, 
returned into their camp, and attempted to oppose these 
negotiations. But the soldiers would not listen to tbem, for they 
said that the Muscovites had withdrawn, and that they had lost 
many of their comrades, wherefore they greatly desired to enter 
into arrangements with us. Demetrius Schuisky, on his side, 
strove to break off these parleys, and sent men to make incredible 
promises to the foreigners, but in vain. The mercenary soldiers 
obliged Pontus and Horn to take part in the convention, the 
articles of which are as follows : ' That they shall all have their 
lives and baggage saved ; that those who may desire to enter 
your Majesty's service shall have liberty to do so ; and that those 
who wish to return to their own country shall have safe conduct : 
finally, that, on their side, they and their chiefs shall pledge 
themselves by oath (and shaking hands) not to bear arms against 
your Majesty, especially in the Muscovite army.' Demetrius 
Schuisky perceiving that the foreigners were parleying with me 
about himself, did not wait for the termination of our conference. 
Hastily abandoning the entrenchment within which he had fortified 
himself with all the Muscovites who remained in a condition to 
fight, he threw himself into the woods, which were not very far 
off. Some of our men gave him chase, the others with the 



304 



APPENDIX. 



foreigners, fell upon Schuisky's camp, which was rich and well 
provided. There, among the other chariots, Schuisky's carriage 
had remained. They took his sabre, his helmet, and his mace 
(boulava). In the pursuit, as it generally happens, more men 
were killed than in the fight. Soltykof told me that he saw 
Jakof Boriatinski among the dead. Basil Boutourlin is a 
prisoner. We have also taken a Secretary of State, Jakof 
Dekoudof, who was bringing money for the foreigners ; and, in 
fact, on the Saturday before the battle, he had given them 10,000 
silver roubles ; besides this, he had brought with him furs and 
cloths worth 20,000 roubles, which had not yet been unpacked, 
and which our men captured in Schuisky's camp. Our Pocholiks 
and the Cossacks of Pogrebistch have cleverly got a rich booty. 
Your Majesty's troops have suffered great losses in men and 
horses, and it is necessary that your Majesty's goodness should 
grant them assistance in money to supply their need. I will not 
tell you to-day the names of those who have distinguished them- 
selves in your Majesty's service, for when I began I announced to 
you a very short letter, and I have already run on to considerable 
length. Only, I will say of all in general, that I saw them, as 
the affair sufficiently proves, behaving themselves bravely in your 
Majesty's service, and as it befits men of war ; and I am sure 
that your Majesty will deign to be satisfied with them. There 
were in the enemy's army eleven falconets, seven of which only 
are in my hands, for it has been difficult to bring them here, for 
want of means of transport. The others are still with the 
captains. We have about ten standards ; among others the 
banner of Boutourlin who commanded the vanguard, and the 
standard of Schuisky, of silk magnificently embroidered with 
gold. Your Majesty has written to me to send Ivan Soltykof. 
I divine the motive. His father believes he is dangerously 
wounded. On the contrary, he is very well indeed, and was with 
me in this battle, in which he did bravely, as did also the other 
Muscovite boyards attached to your Majesty. I have nothing 
more to communicate to your Majesty, except to offer you my 
humble services. 



BATTLE OF KLOUCHINO. 



305 



"Written from the camp before Tsarevo-Zaimistche, July 5th, 
1610. 

" Postscript. The foreigners who formed part of the hostile 
army, Germans, French, English, and Scotch, have all come over 
to your Majesty's camp. Yesterday, after my conference with 
Pontus he narrowly escaped being killed by the English ; Edward 
Horn and a few Finlanders and Swedes who had escaped with 
him succeeded in restraining the fury of their comrades, who 
demanded of him the money which he had received from the 
Muscovites, and which he had not distributed among them. 
Pontus has gone to Pogoreloe to fetch a sick Frenchman who 
was left there, Captain Delaville, and from thence he will gain 
the frontier of Livonia. He has promised me and given me his 
word to serve the Muscovites no longer. He does not wish to 
return to Sweden, but desires to proceed to the Netherlands. 
Edward Horn, on his side, has earnestly requested me to inter- 
cede with your Majesty to obtain for him your good graces. 

" Your Majesty is not ignorant of the zeal and fidelity of M. 
Zborowski in your service in this war. Time will show how 
greatly your Majesty's affairs have profited by his means. During 
these late occasions, and especially in the battle which has just 
taken place, and in which I entrusted to him the command of the 
right wing, he behaved like a true gentleman, and displayed at 
once the valour of a soldier and the prudence of a consummate 
general. I take pleasure in doing homage to his intrepidity. 
As he has been a very long while absent from his house, his 
affairs are in great disorder ; besides, in the last battle, he 
suffered very considerable losses ; these motives, but most of all 
his weak health, compel him to return home. I very humbly 
beg your Majesty to take into consideration his loyal services 
and his bravery, and kindly to grant him your favour and good 
graces. "— Zolkiewski MSS., p. 316. 

EXTRACT FROM THE JOURNAL OF SAMUEL MASKIEWICZ. 

* * * Our spies informed the Hetman (Zolkiewski) of the 
approach of the Muscovite army, and of its strength. We were 



306 



APPENDIX. 



only about 3000 men, whilst the Muscovites had more than 50,000 
fighting men, besides 20,000 armed peasants, who carried behind 
the army stakes with which to fortify their camp. Valouief was 
at the head of 8000 men whom we held in siege. News came 
up in rapid succession, and all was of an alarming character. 
Our men were all the more disquieted because there was no proper 
place for giving battle, for our camp was in the midst of great 
woods, and behind us was a hostile force in its entrenchments. 
To ubtain a capitulation from the enemy did not appear possible. 
To withdraw ourselves was not to be thought of. God alone 
could give us the victory. The Hetman sent men incessantly to 
reconnoitre the Muscovites. They brought to him four Germans 
who had voluntarily surrendered, and who gave us a detailed 
account of all the plans of the enemy. 

" The colonels and captains who were collected together on this 
occasion by the Hetman, were of opinion that we should forestall 
the enemy. The Muscovites thought of falling upon us on the 
following day, so we resolved to attack them on that very day. 
They were only four miles distant from us. All the companies 
were ordered to prepare for action, and to take provisions for two 
days. This was effected very secretly, in order to escape the 
observation of Valouief, and to leave him in ignorance of our 
movements : for if at that moment, he had fallen upon our 
baggage, where we had but a few guards, he would easily have 
captured it. Thus, with the help of God, on Saturday, an hour 
before nightfall, we mounted our horses and rode in silence from 
our camp, leaving there only 700 cavalry, in two regiments, 
namely : that of the Starost of Braclaw, Kalinowski, and that of 
Boboski, besides 4000 Zaporogue Cossacks and 200 infantry. 
The Hetman took with him about 2500 horsemen and 200 foot 
soldiers, with two pieces of artillery drawn by four horses. We 
had no baggage, except the carriage of the Hetman. After 
having marched all night, on the 4th of July, at day-break, we 
suddenly found ourselves face to face with the enemy. Our 
rear-guard was still far off, with the cannon which had stuck in 
the mud in the miry roads of the forest, so that it was difficult 



BATTLE OF KLOUCHINO. 



307 



to begin the affair. The Hetman, not daring to attack the vast 
camp of the enemy, sent orders to the rear-guard to make haste, 
and meanwhile ranged his men in battle order, and set fire to 
the village near which the Muscovites were encamped. At the 
same time, our drums and trumpets began to sound. The affair 
began near Klouchino. The enemy, surprised by our unexpected 
arrival, hastened to leave their quarters : the Muscovites had 
their camp quite surrounded with palisades, and the Germans 
were encamped apart, within an enclosure of baggage waggons. 
Both were greatly in disorder, and doubtless said to one another, 
according to the proverb : " Hand me my horse ! saddle my 
shabrack ! " The Germans began the action with their ordinary 
tricks, sheltering themselves by the marshes, hedges, and woods, 
and their musketeers on foot, covered by their pikemen, did us 
much harm, On their side, the Muscovites, distrusting their 
own strength, mingled with the squadrons of German reiters, and 
prepared to fall upon us with them. It was frightful to compare 
this innumerable multitude with our handful of soldiers. The 
Hetman, reminding all of immortal glory, gave orders to charge, 
and meanwhile the ecclesiastics, going through the regiments, 
blessed our cavaliers. First of all, in the name of God, a few 
squadrons engaged in the fight ; others charged afterwards, each 
in its turn. But, let any one who was only a spectator relate 
the details of this battle. For my part, I found it warm work 
under the banner of Prince Porycki, and it was agreeable to 
knock away the flies on right and left : each of us had to play 
with his arms till he was ready to die with fatigne. Suffice it to 
say, that, with the exception of the squadron of M. Martin 
Kasanowski, which the Hetman kept in reserve, all the others 
had to furnish eight or ten charges. This may appear incredible, 
but the thing is certain ! The Hetman stood on an eminence, 
from whence he beheld our -men disappearing, as it were, into an 
infernal abyss, in the midst of floods of enemies, and with 
difficulty following our flying standard, which led them to the fight. 
Losing almost all hope, like a second Moses, he lifted his hands 
to heaven, and besought its aid unceasingly. All our hope was 



308 



APPENDIX. 



in the goodness of the Almighty, and to his pitj for the Polish 
nation we were indebted for the victory. In our repeated charges, 
our ranks had become disordered and our strength exhausted, for 
the proverb is right in saying, that, ' Hercules himself can do 
nothing against numbers.' Our horses were knocked up, and 
our men had fought incessantly from sun-rise on a summer's day 
until dinner-time, that is for five hours, and were beginning to 
lose courage and resolution in superhuman efforts. Moreover, we 
shuddered to think that we were in a hostile country, in the 
midst of numberless and ferocious enemies. To retreat with 
arms in our hands was not to be thought of ; to demand quarter 
was not less impossible ; our safety depended upon God, upon 
fortune, and upon our arms. We encouraged one another in this 
hope, which sustained our courage. At length it failed us, for 
at the same time as our strength, we had lost our lances, those 
weapons so indispensable to a hussar, and so formidable to the 
enemy. Everything failed us at once, and the enemy redoubled 
in strength and boldness. At length our men, with their 
standards in front, threw themselves on the enemy's ranks, 
shouting : ' Charge ! charge ! ' Vain effort ! we had neither 
order nor force ; colonels and captains were no longer discernible. 
It was an inexpressible melee and confusion. At this moment 
the enemy, remarking our situation, detached against us two 
reserve corps of cavalry to give us our death-blow ; but this 
movement saved us, and by the grace of the Almighty, gave us 
the victory. This cavalry falling upon us, who were in disarray, 
fired on us a salvo of pistols, and then, according to the custom of 
reiters, demi-volted to re-load their arms, whilst the second line 
advanced to fire in its turn. Then, without waiting for this 
volley, we fell upon, them sabre in hand, in such sort that the 
first had no time to re-load nor the second to fire. Both turned 
their backs, and retreated upon the main body of the Muscovite 
army, arranged in front of the gates of their camp, broke their 
ranks, and threw them into disorder. The Muscovites in terror 
fled pell-mell with the Germans, and threw themselves into the 
camp, into which we followed them sword in hand without meeting 



BATTLE OF KLOUCHINO. 



309 



with much resistance, though at the entrance to the camp there 
were some 10,000 Strelitz. But, by the grace of God, they did 
us no harm. The enemy, no longer hoping to hold out in their 
camp, threw down their palisades, and fled through the breaches 
on every side. We pursued them for more than a mile. Thus, 
by the divine mercy, from being conquered we became con- 
querors. 

" Returning from giving them chase, we hoped to find our men 
triumphant, but we saw that, during the pursuit, the Muscovite 
general had rallied some squadrons of cavalry, all his infantry, 
and the Strelitz and peasants, and that he was diligently employed 
in intrenching himself within his camp, stopping up the breaches, 
lining the palisades with his Strelitz, and with eighteen pieces of 
artillery, so that it was difficult to get near him. At the same 
time the fugitives, who had been dispersed through the woods, 
rallied round their comrades, and the Germans and reiters 
stationed themselves behind their chariots, on the wing which had 
not been broken by us. In truth, both Muscovites and Germans 
were in the greatest anxiety ; especially the latter, who had 
found their allies no firmer in keeping their word than in fighting 
on the field of battle. Discord reigned among them, the 
Germans wishing to move off, but Pontus opposed this, and 
combated their discontent for a long while. 

"We found our men assembled on an eminence at a little 
distance from the Muscovite camp, dismounted and holding their 
horses by the bridle. We wished also to breathe for a moment 
after so many fatigues, and whilst the enemy remained in inaction ; 
but the Ketman, not content with his success, wished to complete 
the defeat of the enemy by an attack on the back of the German 
camp, which was more accessible than that of the Muscovites. 
However, the Germans, by two and threes, began to come over 
to us, assuring us that all their countrymen were disposed to 
surrender to the mercy of the Hetman. Soon, several dozens of 
them came, relating the same thing. The Hetman resolved to 
attempt to treat with them, hoping to overcome the enemy sooner 
by words than by the sabre. He caused the trumpet to sound to 



310 



APPENDIX. 



show that he wished to enter into a parley. Immediately, the 
Germans joyfully accepted this overture, and a large number came 
over to us, announcing that Pontus alone was opposed to a capitu- 
lation. Then the Hetman sent to him his relation, M. Zolkiewski, 
the baggage-officer of the crown, and M. Borkowski the elder, 
who were acquainted with several foreign languages. They had 
orders to remind him that, on several occasions, he had given his 
word not to bear arms against the King of Poland, but that he 
should be promised oblivion of the past, and his Majesty's favour, 
if he made submission. Upon this assurance, Pontus accepted the 
capitulation, stipulating that all those of his soldiers who desired 
to return to their country should have liberty to do so ; then he 
sent to inform Demetrius Schuisky that he could no longer keep 
his army to its duty, and that Schuisky must take measures for 
his own safety. On receiving this news, the Russian general 
jumped on horseback, and left the camp to ride to Moscow. 
Then there was a sauve qui pent, and the infantry dispersed into 
the woods. Our outposts shouted : " The enemy is in flight ! " 
We set upon their track, and drove them two or three miles, 
during which chase we killed more than upon the field of battle. 
It was only towards evening that we rejoined our army, and we 
found all the Germans collected under the orders of the Hetman, 
and both camps abandoned. A Te Deum was sung for the unex- 
pected mercy which the Almighty had just granted us. Then the 
Hetman ordered that the corpses of the dead should be collected into 
the same place and buried ; but the persons of distinction and the 
hussars were carried away. As for the wounded, some were put 
into the Hetman 's carriage, and others into litters borne by two 
horses, which were driven towards the camp (of Tsarevo- 
Zaimistche). After having allowed our horses to breathe, without 
taking time to eat, about sunset we returned with the Germans 
to our baggage, at the distance of four miles from the field of 
battle." 



LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED OR QUOTED. 



1. Sobranie Gosoudarstvennyh Gramoty, <£c. — Collection of Diplomas, 
Charters, and other Documents, preserved in the Imperial College 
of Foreign Affairs Moscow, 1819, in folio. 

2. Skazaniia o LHmitni Samozvantse. — Contemporary Memoirs regarding 

the False Demetrius. Petersburgh, 1837, 5 vols., 8vo. This col- 
lection contains: 

i. The Chronicle of Moscow, by Martin Baer. 

ii. The Memoirs of George Peyerle. 

hi. The State of the Empire of Eussia, by Captain Margeret ; and 
Chapter CXXXY. of De Thou's Historia Mei Temporis. 

iv. The Journal of the Journey of Marina Mniszek into Russia ; and 

the Journal of the Polish Ambassadors, Olesznicki and Gon- 
ciewski. 

v. The Memoirs of Samuel Maskiewicz.* 

3. Musskowitische Chronika, publiciret durch Petrum Petreium de 

Erlesunda. Lipsise, 1620, 4to. 

4. Zetopis o Miatejal'h, — The Chronicle of the Troubles of Russia from 

1584 to 1655. Moscow, 1788, 8vo. 

5. Skazanie o Osade Trditskago Monasteira. — Narrative of the Siege of the 

Monastery of St. Sergius at Troitsa, by Abraham Palitsyne. Moscow, 
1784. 

6. Zolkiewski Manuscripts, published by M. Moltchauof. Moscow, 1835, 

8vo. 

7. Historica Russia Monumenta, bv A. J. Tourghenief. Petropoli, 1841- 

1842. 4to. 

8. Abridgement of the Ecclesiastical History of Russia, by the Metro- 

politan Platon. Moscow, 1833. 2 vols., 8vo. 

9. Rousslca'ia Istoriia. — History of Russia. Petersburgh, 1837. 2 vols., 

8vo. 

10. Historia Vladislai Poloniae et Suecife Principis, auctore Stanislao a 
Kobierzycki, Castellano Gedanensi. Dantisci, 1655. 4to. 

* Each of these works has been translated into Eussian, and annotated by 
M. Oustrialof. 



312 LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED OR QUOTED. 

11. Stanislai Lubienski, Episcopi Plocensis, Opera Posthuma Historica. 

Antwerpise, 1643. Folio. 

12. Tragsedia Moscovitica, Sive de vitaetmorte Demetrii, qui nuper apud 

Ruthenos imperium tenuit, narratio ex fide dignis scriptis et litteris 
excerpta. Colonise, apud Gerardum Grevenbrouch, anno 1608. 
12mo. 

13. Discours merveilleux et veritable de la Conqueste faite par le jeune 

Demetrius, Grand Due de Moscovie, du sceptre de son frere, avenue 
en cette annee 1605, avec son couronnement du dernier Juillet, par 
Bareze Barezi. Arras, 1606. 12mo. 

14. Historia di Pollonia : Historia di Moscovia, dell Sig. Alessandro Cilli. 

Pistoia, 1627. 4to. 

15. Antonii Possevini, Societatis Jesu, Moscovia; ejusdem novissima 

descriptio. Antwerpiae, 1687. 8vo. 

16. Esame Critico con docunienti inediti della storia di Demetrio, di Iwan 

Wasiliewitch, per Seb. Ciampini. Firenze, 1827. 

17. Original Testimonies regarding the Reciprocal Relations of Russia and 

Poland, especially during the time of the Impostors. Collected by 
M. Moukhanof. Moscow, 1834. 4to. 

18. Chronica Gestorum in Europa singularium a Paulo Piasecio, Episcopo 

Pra3misliensi, conscripta. Cracoviee, 1845. 4to. 

19. Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii Sigismundi liberi baronis in 

Herberstain. Basilese (no date; probably 1551). Folio. 

20. Estat de l'Empire de Russie, et Grande Duche de Moscovie, par le 

Capitaine Margeret. 1669. 

21. Diarium Itineris in Moscoviam, per 111. ac Mag. D. Ign. Xphi. de 

Guarient et Rail, Imperatoris ablegati ad Tsarum Petrum Alexio- 
wicium, anno 1698, descriptum a Io. Geo. Korb, "Secretario ablega- 
tionis Cesarese. Viennae Austrise (no date). Folio. 

22. Voyage de la Reyne de Pologne, par le Laboureur. 

23. Description d'Ukranie, qui sont plusieurs provinces du Royaume de 

Pologne, par le Sieur de Beauplan. Rouen, 1660. 4to. 

24. Ob Istoritchesl'om Znatchenii Tsarstvovcmiia Borisa Oodounova. — On the 

Historical Importance of the reign of Boris Godounof, by P. Pavlof. 
Moscow, 1850. 

25. Russia in the Olden Time, by A. Kormilovitch. Petersburgh, 1824. 

26. Karamzin's History of Russia, translated by M. de Divoff. Vol. xi. 

Paris, 1826. 



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